May 28 - June 5

It has been a really busy week since I last had the chance to update. We left Charlottesville and climbed up Afton mountain to get onto the Blueridge Parkway. It was extremely difficult but the feeling when we actually got to the "top" and could look out and see how high we had climbed was indescribable. We got to do a lot of downhills and then back up to the top of the next peak. We are now really good at doing hills and all in really good shape. We stopped in Lexington, VA. The next day was surprisingly tougher than the actual parkway. The hills were really steep, so steep that at some points we felt like we were going to go backwards. Jen, Heather, and I came up with a good way to get through the mountains, we would only make it a little way at a time but it helped a lot. I have started making really creative sandwiches for lunch. For example, bread, grape jelly, apricot jelly, peanut butter, cream cheese, sour cream and onion chips, banana, and cocoa puffs. It has been delicious. We crossed our first state line today! West Virginia!! We stayed in Summersville, Charelston, and then Huntington. It was really nice to enjoy the downhills that we had worked so hard for. Every day there has been some sort of terrible unexpected climb. It sucks while we are doing it but feels SO good when we get to the top. We are now in Ohio and have been here for three days. We stayed in Portsmouth, Georgetown, and Cincinnati. We have been in Cincinnati for two days now. The first day we got here we went to a YMCA and got to go swimming which was so refreshing. I had been thinking about it for a few days so to finally get to do it was wild. We went to a karaoke bar last night and had a blast. I'm sure the other people in the bar weren't enjoying it as much as we were, we couldn't have been having a better time. Today we were on a build site helping put up the tresses for the roof. My shoulder was really bothering me so I took it pretty easy and stayed away from hammering. Tomorrow we go into our fourth state, I guess technically its our fifth because we rode into Kentucky for about two minutes to take a picture with the sign. I can't believe how fast its been going. It really feels like a family now. I am having a blast.