Update #5 - May 08th, 2001
Syracuse, New York - 1614 miles

I'm sorry that I've not been able to get an update posted until now. I've only been able to check my email along the way sporadically. Someday, I hope to be better connected.

The ride up the East Coast from Kill Devil Hill, NC went okay. In fact, I've made better progress than expected with my daily average up to 53 miles per day. It took me about a day and a quarter ride to get up to Virginia Beach, VA from the Outer Banks. I stopped at this Presbyterian church for the Sunday morning service. In a strange fluke, the one person who really took the time to talk me after the service offered to take me across the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland. I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to try and get a ride across.

Once on the Eastern Shore (the Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) Peninsula), the ride went really well. I had a tailwind to push me along and it was mostly flat territory. The only problem in this section was the high heat with temperatures getting into the nineties.

May 1st has been the longest traveled day with almost 92 miles traveled from Salisbury, MD to Conovertown, NJ that didn't include the nearly 2 hour long ferry ride from Lewes, DL to Cape May, NJ. May 4th was another long day that saw me from Toms River, NJ to Tenefly, NJ, which is about 12 miles north of the George Washington Bridge to New York City, with a distance of 78.2 miles cycled. I was really happy to get through congested NE New Jersey. Traffic and the roads were horrendous.

From Tenefly, I had a three day ride up the Hudson River to Albany, NY. I crossed the Appalachian Trail at the Bear Mountain Bridge and Harriman State Park. For the most part the ride was okay but I did have to accept a 16 mile ride from West Point to Newburgh, NY because it would have been too dangerous to make an attempt up and over the mountain there, which was the eastern edge of the Catskills.

At Albany, I headed westward through the Mohawk River Valley basically traveling along NY 5. It is great to be in flat territory again. I've made the ride along NY 5 countless times in both directions. This is also the main bike route across the state because of it's low hills. During the past three days, I've covered over 60 miles per day. Today found me riding along the old Erie Canal to Syracuse.

I'm on my way across the state to Niagara Falls before making my way through Buffalo and then along the shore of Lake Erie to Ohio. I hope to be at my next major rest stop in West Central Ohio in about three weeks.