A Rough Beginning - A Rougher Ending

Today got off to an interesting start as the alarms (note: 3 different alarms) meant to wake Nate or myself up failed to go off, or were inaudible, or something.  Needless to say, 8 minutes after a text from Molly (the text noise woke us up!?) we were downstairs in the lobby ready to catch a cab.  We ended up in 2 different cabs, with Nate taking one on his own.  I took my best guess at where to get dropped off near the finish line in Central Park since we had all of our personal belongings with us (lots of large, heavy bags and suitcases), and I actually had a pretty good guess.  The only problem is that the street we took into the park didn't actually connect with any part of the park.  We ended up cutting all the way across the park East to West just to go back East again.  It was a painful, slightly humiliating experience (Side note: Molly is a trooper).

We did have a really nice view from our finish line booth.

The finish line was fun, and definitely made me lust after some bikes.  I miss having one around and will be working on trying to get one on the tour with me.  I think the nicest bike I saw (even in spite of the numerous Zipp wheels, Cervelos, etc) had to be this one:

After the expo finished, we headed over to the Crocs flagship store a few blocks west of the park.  They have a really nice selection.  I bought myself a pair of the men's Santa Cruz model.

After we returned to the trucks, Nate and I parted ways with Molly and we headed back to Nate's aunt and uncle's house for dinner.  They had a wonderfully refreshing pool that I swam in for a while, and then dinner was extremely tasty.  They gave me some good suggestions for what to check out along the Connecticut coast tomorrow, so I booked a hotel in New London, CT and headed out at 8PM expecting to get to my destination around 11PM in time to catch up a bit on sleep after a long weekend.

Here's where things got a little interesting.  I thought getting into Manhattan through the Lincon Tunnel was bad traffic-wise (though I expected some delay on a Thursday afternoon), but the traffic on the George Washington Bridge into Northern New York City was absolutely horrendous at 9PM on a Sunday night.  I spent 3 hours sitting in standstill traffic before finally crossing the bridge.

The entire drive took about 6 hours, and I just recently got to my hotel (note the time stamp - Pacific Time) at about 2:15 AM.  Red Bull was my friend along the way, as was loud music.  Note to self: avoid the George Washington Bridge in the future.  The only problem with that idea is that the main traffic veins between New England and the rest of the U.S. run right through New York, and going around that area can add hours onto a drive (though apparently going through that area does the same thing).

Tomorrow I'll be sleeping in a bit (I got the hotel to give me a late checkout for free) and then checking out a couple spots along the coast (Mystic, CT and Newport, MA are two likely stops) before trying to get to the suburbs of Boston tomorrow night.

Overall, a good day.  I'm just exhausted.