Sea-to-Sea NA Day 56 Today was cloudy throughout the 93 km ride. The sun had pocked out briefly about 7:30 and the vapour could be seen rising from the wet tents but it did not last. I chose to ride in just my jersey and shorts but it was quite cool for the first 20 minutes until I got warmed up. The route was quite complex through the city of Binghamton and suburbs and we appreciated the road arrows once again. Once I reached Pennsylvania I crested on a long grade and then started a gentle downward slope. The speed went up to around 35kph but I had expected more considering the 30+ I was doing on the uphill portion. The slope is hard to judge when it is a long one with no reference point. This down slope was probably 10km or more in length and as the road levelled or went up my speed went up instead of down. I think I was just in a strong pedaling mode so I kept on trucking. We saw 2 long concrete train viaducts, which looked like Roman aqueducts, today. They make a picturesque variation to the country scenery. Tonight we are in Lackawanna State Park, several miles from any town but the park is blessed with a concession stand like no other I have seen. It has Italian opera music playing and all sorts of Italian food. Rita and I had eggplant on a bun smothered in a tomato based sauce and Parmesan cheese, very good. The only thing missing was the red wine. We have two days of riding left, one relatively hard and then the wind-down day on Saturday. Now our thoughts start to turn to the other life we led before the tour but it is hard to really think about that because many of us do not know what has gone on in the world except for some contact with family. We see election signs now for anything from president to local roads supervisor but other than that we have not a clue what has gone on in the rest of the world. The tour takes over your life, you are busy from before sunup to after sundown. You need to stay focused on food, preparations and recording either in journals or on blogs (ahich can’t be posted). Sure there are days when you have more time than others but that is spent primarily in discussions with fellow riders about the last ride or the next ride or other things tour related. Like the last tour, near the end you start to wonder what the others do outside of the tour and questions about their future come up. During these 9 weeks most conversation is tour related.