Teen Treks

Today we woke up to a light drizzle of rain and a fresh bowl of oatmeal made by chefs Sam and Oscar. After loading up on fuel we embarked on a beautiful journey through the Dutch countryside. We were struck in awe by the beauty of a Dutch canal village that we biked through to start the morning. Afterward we went to Rotterdam where we spent our lunch break in a bike parking lot (!) Keeping Oscar company while he fixed a campers bike. After fueling up yet again we buckled down and flew through the Dutch country side which included an encounter with free roaming sheep and cow. We went through a bike tunnel under a river, slid down the slide and zipped down the zip line at a playground, and decided to add fifteen miles to our trip. Finally we got ice cream and arrived at the camp site. We set up tents and got right to bed after looking at the stars to prepare for another big day!

We started off the day at Bryant Park in Manhattan, and made our way out of the city on our journey towards Montreal. We had a bit of a rocky start, between tough hills, equipment issues (which landed us at a very retro bike shop), and a minor storm. We pushed through and made it to our campsite at Croton Point Park. Spirits were high tonight as we ate a delicious meal followed with a nighttime swim. Excitement is in the air for tomorrow!

-Leader Lauren

While I sit here on a mattress for the first time in days, I reminisce on our trip thus far. How we got to these beds takes us back to the beginning of the day. We awoke early in preparation for our final long ride to our first hotel of the trip, a Hilton. After we finished our cereals, including honey nut crunchy oats and cinnamon crunch squares, we left on our trek. The ride was long and hilly, but it did have many sources of entertainment. One of the first of these were two large minions on the side of the road cheering us on. We saw a couple of interesting street signs including Sesame Street and Elm Street. We made it to the Stop and Shop for lunch and enjoyed a nice meal which included many different peanut butter alternatives, not including peanut butter. We left the stop and shop with full bellies and with that boost of energy we made it to the Hilton. We got our bikes into the elevators and walked up stairs for the first time in nine days. Once we were free of our bikes we explored Providence and enjoyed the sights of the town. When we came back to the Hilton we found we chilled out in our rooms until dinner. We enjoyed burgers from a sit down restaurant and came back to the hotel to celebrate with balloons and a “spa night” our last day. We reminisced our trip and now, dear reader, we have caught up to present time, so our story is finished. 

We awoke to find the pavilion we found in the middle of Victoria Park Canada had kept us dry from the storm. We sloshed through puddles to get to our abandoned campsite. What a better morning than the surprise of a pool at the bottom of your tent.  
   Even with the storm setting us back, we managed to get on the road with a good attitude. Despite the nasty weather that occurred the day before, it was absolutely perfect out. Not too hot not too cold, not a single cloud to be seen. We pedaled up and down the beautiful rolling hills of the Ontario countryside before lunch.
   At lunch for some reason we decided to see if we could smell out our own shoes. Everyone took one shoe off and put it in line in front of someone who was blindfolded. The blindfolded person would guess who’s shoe was who’s. That was probably the worst and weirdest thing we had done the whole trip.
   After some refreshing ice cream, we carried on our trek. Everyone was super excited to get to the campsite early so we could play games and swim. We met Haley and Shannon at the campground and we all had a big dinner together.
   After dinner we decided to go for a swim even though it was not very warm out. With our new friends we plunged into Lake Ontario to our wind down our evening before playing a quick card game. It was a very interesting day to say the least.

-Super cool trekker Alanasaurus Rex

We had a slow wake up this morning as we made our way into The Hague. We went to the MC Escher Palace, a palace for the Dutch royal family that was repurposed as a museum for the works of M C Escher. We then had sandwiches, sardines, and herring for lunch. It doesn’t sound like it, but herring preserved in tomato sauce on a cracker is a godly combination. We also made a stop at the international court of justice. We then made our way to the campsite and had to battle some extreme winds to get there. The campsite is one of the nicest yet on the trip, with woods on one side and a field on the other with a river going through it. We wrapped up our night with some warm ramen, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, and eggs. 

New York-Montreal Trekkers met early this morning at Bryant Park in Manhattan to embark on an amazing adventure, biking all the way to Montreal!  Over the next 16 days this group of Trekkers will bike north through the Hudson Valley, through the Adirondacks, into Quebec and onto Montreal.  They will cool off in many rivers and lakes along the way and visit picturesque small towns.  They’ll overnight at campgrounds, hotels, and hostels and stop for 2 days in Albany, NY to visit the state capital, 1 day in Burlington to visit Ben & Jerry’s, and 3 days in Montreal to wander through street markets, eat at restaurants, and see stunning architecture.  Stay tuned right here over the next 2+ weeks for their day to day stories and pictures.

Day 9 (already?!)
We started the day by cleaning our campsite with mark & co. A warm breakfast of English muffins was very refreshing. After 25km, our new friends left us and continued on. We kept going all the way to Port Hope. We got groceries and ate lunch. After that, me (Henry) and Olivia went to the Toe Beans Cat Café! We couldn’t actually go to see the cats because they were at capacity 🙁 so we continued on our journey. We got raspberries, and made it to the campsite. We jumped right into the water to relax. It was perfect: crystal clear water, and soft sand all the way out. We had a great dinner of Buffalo chicken, and a hot fudge sundae for dessert. After cleaning up, we noticed that it was about to rain, so we hurriedly stuffed everything into our tents and tried to wait out the storm in the big tent. We soon realized we couldn’t stay there, so when the rain stopped for a moment we ran out to a pavilion. We hung out there for a bit, waiting out the rain, but it kept coming down. It started getting wet, even under the pavilion, so we decided to run for the laundry room, but the room we thought was the laundry room wasn’t actually it, so we all ran into the men’s washroom, which was nearby. Eventually we found a bigger pavilion on the other side of the park, and after Adam scouted it out, we decided to just sleep there. We grabbed our sleeping bags and made our way to the pavilion. It was nice and dry there, a perfect spot to spend the night, except for the extremely loud thunder and light right outside. We fell asleep completely dry.

Day 8
As I bleed myself upon these pages, watching my creative soul spill out in front of me for the entertainment of you, dear reader.
I try to recall both the highs and the lows of today and inspiration struck. A poem.

We woke up early, sun shining bright on our faces
Once awoken we dined upon the most succulent of meals
We rushed to finish eating so we could clean up the campsite, so as to leave no traces
The campsite all clean, we laced our shoes, not heels, and hopped on our bikes with two wheels.
As we kept riding we saw cool sights, namely a bridge that could move up and down.
As we continued our ride, we stopped on the way at Starbuck
With the day being so hot, there were many a frown
But the cashiers in the shop took pity upon us, they filled our bottles with ice-water, what luck!
Two miles until the end of the trek, we stopped for ice cream
We got two flavors, one superior chocolate, and the other an inferior strawberry
A debate was sparked and the winner was the chocolate team
(Break in poem because i found this funny, the only person who supported the strawberry team was one of the team leaders, Simon(Christophe))
The ride was thirty miles, so once we reached the end, we were understandably weary
With the games all played and the food all made
We all went to sleep, no regrets remained.
-Trekker Ashwin, master scribe and poet, champion of spikeball, extremely 2008

Today we woke up to the birds, had a nice egg and potato breakfast made by Delaney, and made our way out of the campsite into a national park. The trees kept us cool and we stopped by a lake to rest before embarking on our journey to the beach. We had ice cream, dipped our feet in the water, and some of us looked for shells while others napped in the sand. Next, we transversed though the dunes and stumbled upon a festival of living statues. We arrived at our campsite after forty miles, exhausted and happy to cozy up in our tents.

We woke up to Olivia’s aggressive alarm and took 15 minutes to wake up. Once we all got out of bed and got ready, we got on the road and started biking. Once the first half of riding was done and lunch was eaten we stopped at the park to play a game. We played a game called coup for about an hour and I lost every time. We got back on the road and got to the store to buy groceries for dinner. The cooks got stuff for pizza on English muffins. We ate dinner and then Alana made these awesome rice krispies for dessert. We also made some friends, Mark and his 3 kids, who where cycling around Canada. We talked to them for a while and headed to bed. 

-Trekker Duncan