No rain and sunny skies. Thank God! A couple crazy hills, but mostly flat or rollers. All in all, not a bad cycling day but we both clearly are sick with a head cold or something. We were leaving the town of Shelton for Elma and had realized that we had missed a turn and needed help with directions when Al showed up. He had pulled off the side of the road and approached us with an offer to stay at his place. He explained that he belonged to the network http://www.warmshowers.org/ , a website just for cyclists who exchange places to stay. His place was right on the route about 5 miles from where we were. At first, we didn't know what to think. Al's enthusiasm was the type you would either see from someone inviting us to a revival or to an Amway sales meeting. With both of us feeling under the weather, we figured we might as well stop by. And what a great decision that was.
Al lives with his wife Donna and son Lewis in a house on a hill that he built himself. He had a queen size bed in the garage for us and a hot shower. He made us an incredible spaghetti dinner, a couple cold beers, veggies, fresh fruit and blueberry pound cake that Donna had made. The next morning, breakfast was pancakes with fresh picked blueberries. They put a candle in Sam's pancake and Lewis played happy birthday on the piano. Their home and hospitality was truly a respite and an oasis along our journey. One of our highlights for sure. Thanks, Al.
1 comment:
Happy (belated) Birthday Sam! That was a great story! Really great that you ran into Al, Donna and Lewis. Really nice people.
Keep it up guys. The weather will be nicer as you roll south.
Post a Comment