Teen Treks

There’s nothing like waking up next to Lake Ontario while the sun is still rising. Pink, blue and white filling the sky like fluffy cotton candy. Except that it was 5:30. We packed up the tents before heading over to Tim Hortons (I mean what better way to end our time in Canada). 
  After some authentic Canadian Coffee and Timbits we “set sail” for America! 2 Ferry rides and 9 miles of cycling later, we had arrived in Cape Vincent, New York. We rode and we rode over hills and through pouring rain with a continuous headwind, knowing that we had a dry place to sleep and a big meal waiting for us. 
  Thankfully Duncan’s aunt lives on the route, so that’s where we are staying. (Thanks Tiffany) We dried off, ate lunch, and played some corn hole. And then we decided to check out the lake.
Surprisingly, even after a huge storm, the lake was calm. A great afternoon for boating! We got in cars for the first time in 2 weeks and drove down to the marina. We got on the boat and went swimming and tubing, and overall just enjoyed not riding our bikes. 
  After boating, Duncan fired up the grill and made some amazing burgers! We had an amazing dinner and took a break from the teen treks cookbook. After completely stuffing ourselves, Olivia wanted us to go to Stewart’s and get ice cream. 
 We absolutely devoured ice cream before heading back to Duncan’s Aunt Tiffany’s house. We did laundry and took showers to finish our day off. What a great day!

 ⁃ Tired Trekker Alanasaurus Rex

Today we woke up at 5:00 am so that we could bike 35 miles before 12:00 to catch the ferry to Block Island. Luckily, we made it there in time. The ferry was going very fast and made for a wild and bumpy ride. Once we got to the island we walked around town, swam at the beach, and introduced mini-Simon (a younger kid who was watching us play earlier) to Spikeball! After that we played card games while cooking up some delicious pasta with meatballs. We arrived at our campsite with 7 minutes of daylight left to put up our tents. Today was very fun and we all can’t wait till tomorrow.

Written by 
—Trekker Lily

The morning began with a light rain shower and an oatmeal breakfast. We set out on another adventurous afternoon on the bike. We then decided to make the decision of going to a old plane museum. We all cried because we didn’t get to see any fly, but we found an ancient bike with a huge tire. We decided to have a nutritious lunch of pb&js and Nutella with bagels. We got back to biking and stopped at a lake to go swim. It was incredibly refreshing and the water was very warm. Jasper taught Zach how to fish and then Zach proceeded to catch a 6 pound bass on the 6th cast.  We didn’t eat it because we just had lunch:(. We biked through Hudson and went to a diner and had a delicious dinner. We biked and the sky was absolutely beautiful. It was a super fun bike ride. We got to the camp and as we went through a clearing we saw a beautiful sunset over the lake. People went fishing and swimming and all had a great time. The end.

-Romen

We started our day off early and wanted to get on the road so that we could get to our hostel. We biked through the last of the Dutch countryside before crossing into Belgium. We travelled for many miles on a canal. On the way we found multiple rafts where you use a rope to pull yourself across the canal. As we trekked on we finally made it to Bruges, where we settled in our hostel and promptly did laundry and got settled. We went on a walking tour of the city and then found a good spot to play poker, gambling with gummies from a bag of candy. We wrapped up the night with a late night stop to get fries and burgers (the burgers here are deep fried and the fries are served with mayo)

Today started off with good vibes, maple syrup and pancakes. A great way to start a day. We washed dishes, and set off across P.E.C. towards the ferry to the mainland. We biked for kilometer after kilometer (75 in total). We eventually reached the grocery store at 2:00. We ate and set off again towards Kingston. We made it to Adolphustown, had dinner and now we’re going to bed!

Today we biked 32 miles and saw lots of amazing things. The first thing we encountered was the hotel that we slept in the previous night which had some amazing food for breakfast. Then we started biking and took a pitstop at FDR’s home and watched an interesting film about him and his wife/cousin. On the road we encountered a man who challenged us to a race, but he was much faster. We had lunch and walked the Poughkeepsie bridge, where we saw another camp group. We finished up the day with very good food that we all loved and ate it as a little family.

We woke up to a warm breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and we hit the road by 9. We rode along the coast with a nice tailwind and ate lunch in a castle in a little seaside village. We then relaxed at a local beach and got ice cream. After that, we crossed between islands on humongous dyke while being surrounded by wind turbines. Chicken fried rice was for dinner, and the highlight of the day was when we talked and played with the locals and other campers from Germany and surrounding countries. 

Unfortunately 6 trekkers left today to go back to Boston as the end of the Cape Cod Trek. After a morning Dunkin Donuts breakfast and a visit to Brown University to see the campus and play SpikeBall, they departed for Boston this afternoon leaving only 3 trekkers and 2 leaders. Simon took the Cape Cod group to Boston while Lily, Addison, Lis, and I kept ourselves entertained by doing laundry and watching the Office and visiting the local bike shop. We were intrigued by a certain bike and once we picked it up we found that it was very light and we were all amazed. When we got back to the hotel Simon came back from Boston. We ended our day with Korean Fried Chicken and Crépes while burning some calories playing SpikeBall. Soon after we returned to the Hilton and we packed up our things and got ready for a very early morning. 

• Trekker Chaitan

Today was very productive. We woke up at our normal time of 7am and hit the road after breakfast. The group got a majority of miles done all in the morning. Our lunch was made of summer sausage, Brie, a baguette and some salad. There was a cool shop that sold lemon themed things and gelato. After we got all of our dessert and drinks, we got back on the road. We ended up stopping at a bike shop that Cliff’s friend owns. I got my bike adjusted and a new cup holder and then we were off for the campground. We got to the campground and did our nightly tasks of making dinner setting up tents and washing dishes. After talking about the plan for the next couple days, we headed to bed.

-Trekker Duncan

Today was our first big biking day and we had our ups and down. We had lots of big hills that we had to conquer that really pushed the group. But on the upside we had some long fast downhills that gave us a nice break. Towards the end of the day we got ice cream which made the long ride definitely worth it. An amazing thing that happened to us is when we went to a gas station to refill water a nice gentlemen bought us ice cold water for all of us. At the hotel we all had pizza, played tons of uno and hopped into the pool which was super refreshing. Overall the day was long but fun.

-Kaya vanDooijeweert