Are we there yet?

(above: courtesy of Jill's camera)

A few weekends ago, 9 English teachers and myself took a bike trip on a popular Japanese bike route. The route Started on our island of Shikoku and ended on the main island Honshu. Along the way we rode over 6 islands and 6 bridges. How long was the ride? Longer than my knees wanted. 70 km or 43 miles. We rented some bikes and started the trip around 10:30 am. The ride (when not going up hills) and scenery was very nice and beautiful. Half way through we stopped at a small restaurant and ate some tempura and cold udon. The weather was super nice until the last 5 minutes of the trip when it started to pour rain. We ended up getting to our destination around 6:00 p.m. The next morning 7 of the ALT's decided to bike back. The old farts (myself being the oldest on the trip) decided to take it easy and take a ferry back. If I would've ridden back, right now my knees would be lost somewhere in a bush next to the bike trail, I would be about 16" shorter, and my nickname would be stumpy. The 3 of us decided to make the most of our time and took turns in a massage chair, ate katsudon (breaded pork over rice with an egg), then went to a bakery and shoved our face full of dessert. That was so much better than biking another 43 miles