Year 3 - Day 5 Elizabethtown NC to Wilmington NC

We departed our cozy cabins this morning early at 7:30 a.m. Our goal for today was to get to the hotel by 3 p.m. in order to avoid getting rained upon! 

It was a foggy misty morning about 55 degrees. We rode back into Elizabethtown and stopped at The Corner Cafe for breakfast since our host at the cabins did not provide breakfast. We all had a great breakfast and soon headed out for our trek to Wilmington NC. 

We spent the majority of the day on two lane roads that, although the speed limit was 55 or 70 mph, were not heavily traveled. Three times today we made a turn and our GPS units said “next turn in 11 (or something close to that) miles”. We spent some time on RT 421 which was very busy and then crossing the Cape Fear River on RT 74 was a little tricky. We entered RT 74 in the center lane, had to move over to the right lane, then as we approached Wilmington, we had to cross back into the center lane in order to get the proper exit.

Wilmington is hosting what appeared to be a rather late Iron Man tomorrow. We passed a parking lot chuck full of bike racks. 

Today’s ride was 76.2 miles and we climbed 1,146 feet in elevation gain.  Total for this years ride in 281.8 miles and 7,334 feet of climbing.



The total for our ECG ride for all 3 years now stands at 1,896.6 miles and 68,758 feet of climbing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Year 4 - Prologue

We had arrived in Key West on Wednesday. Thursday morning, we rode our completely stripped bikes to the "We Cycle" bike shop in downtown Key West. "We Cycle" Bike shop packs bikes in Key West for $75 each.  I should have known there would be issues when I announced to the older gentleman in the shop that we were there to have our bikes packed for shipment and he gave me the deer in the headlights stare! A younger worker came to his rescue and helped take our bikes. When I contacted them earlier in the year to ensure we did not need reservations, etc. I was not informed that even though they had two shops, one in actual "downtown" Key West, it was their other location a slight distance away (about 3 miles) in New Town that actually packs the bikes. We were given the option to take the bikes there or leave them in downtown and downtown would have the bikes transferred to the other location. Not a problem, but it will potentially require extra time. We left t...
Read more

Year 4 - Ride Day 1 - Jacksonville to St Augustine FL

Image
Our path today Very little elevation gain, only about 14 feet per mile.  The train really rocks and rolls all night long. I find it difficult to sleep well, but must have dozed many times for an adequate period as I had plenty of energy all day today.  Amtrak breakfast was not like a Lancaster County breakfast. The scrambled eggs were not cooked adequately, my potato’s had black spots in them, the bacon was good and the biscuit was okay.  We arrived Jacksonville about 20 minutes late, about 7:30 a.m.  Picked our bikes from the baggage car and then collected our other checked luggage.  It took us about 45 minutes to get entirely ready and take the obligatory photo in front of the Jacksonville train station.  As you will probably note, Dan has decided due to his shoulder condition, not ride this year. So we have a SAG vehicle to carry our bags and to take us to meals etc. He is also our designated photographer. Jacksonville is a very large city as far as land...
Read more

Year 4 - PA ECG Team getting ready for departure

Image
 Greetings, The PA ECG Team is preparing to complete our four-year adventure from Callis ME to Key West FL.  This year we will be taking Amtrak Keystone service from Mount Joy, PA to Philadelphia PA, then catching the Silver Meteor to Jacksonville FL. We will be departing Sunday Nov 3 at approx. 9:38 a.m. and arriving in Jacksonville on Monday, November 4 at approx. 7 a.m. We utilize the Roomette feature of Amtrak.  It is a seating cabin during the day and after dinner, the conductor turns it into a sleeping cabin by changing the seats into a bed and lowering the upper bunk. I find the bed very hard and sleeping in a moving rail car difficult, but I do manage to get a little sleep. Hopefully, enough to fuel me from Jacksonville to St Augustine FL. as we will begin riding once we hit Florida soil. This is the map of our adventure for this year. The ECG provides two options for this year's course. Because most of the trip is along the coast, we have elected to travel the al...
Read more