Saturday, July 16, 2011

July 14 - Chris - Buffalo, NY

Today we finally made it into Buffalo, NY. Honestly, it was very surreal to me that we had actually made it to NY. It felt like yesterday we were unloading the bikes for the first time in Mobile, Alabama. I couldn't believe it, we are one day away from finishing our journey.

We started the day off with a pretty easy ride. It was flat and the weather was cooler than usual. I liked the atmosphere of NY so far. We rode to Michigan Street Baptist Church in Buffalo where they would hide escaped slaves right before they would try to cross over to Canada. We got a tour of the church and part of the city from a  man named Kevin Cottrell, a local historian and tour guide. He was really passionate about the UGRR and knew a lot of history. He said he really admired us for doing this because he had traveled the UGRR many years ago but it was in a van not on bikes, like us. I thought that was pretty cool. He really knew things that I had never heard about from a teacher or read in a textbook. In my opinion talking to people and really listening is the best way to learn.

The day ended with us driving to another Quaker family's home. David and Molly were so very nice. David's wife was pregnant with their first child and still welcomed us into their home. We tried to help her out as much as possible. We didn't want her doing too much at all, so we washed the dishes for her and I helped her cook breakfast. Anything we could do to help out we did. After everything was done we all fell asleep on the floor watching napoleon dynamite.

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