The challenge was accepted when our waitress said she thought maybe we would have three slices left over of the massive pizza we ordered for dinner last night. I did have some initial doubts in our ability to finish when I first saw the actual size of this masterpiece.

After the first slice, I realized this was going to happen because it was a nice thin crust. We crushed the pizza like any hungry cyclists would do at this stage of the adventure. Victory at so many levels.

We made our way up the trail a little more after dinner and found a perfect wooded area to set up for a wild camping experience. We waited until there was minimal traffic on the rail trail and made our move into our selected spot. I decided with no rain possible for the night, my tent would not be used. We waisted no time getting set up and with my mosquito head net in place, we slipped into dream land before it was even dark.

The illumination provided by the moon enabled me to get everything packed up this morning with minimal artificial light assistance. We were on the trail early and it was a nice cool morning, the coolest morning as of yet.

The Empire State Trail is absolutely a must ride for anyone traveling through New York. It is well marked and well maintained and will be truly missed. The views this morning were phenomenal.

We were able to see another live skunk, a rat, a Kingfisher, several other bird species and plenty of deer early this morning. The highlight was when two fawns and momma deer were on the trail and a fawn was soon separated from momma. We slowly rode by and after the mother chose the right side of the road, one fawn continued with us on the left side for quite a while. Just down the road another exact set of deer were seen, but they were more clever and took off as a single unit.

The other day Folker noticed something black in my beard. I looked in my beard and a tick was slowly moving around and I quickly removed this hitchhiker. I will have to do another thorough check soon as we were obviously in tick country the last couple of days.

We crossed the Appalachian Trail today and I immediately thought of the numerous times I crossed the Continental Divide Trail last year. It was nice to cross another one of the big three hiking trails in the United States.

We decided to take a quick detour into Poughkeepsie this morning and ride on the second longest pedestrian bridge in the world. The Walkway Over The Hudson was originally a large freight train bridge and now offers great views of Poughkeepsie and the Hudson River for millions of visitors. We later stopped at a cafe downtown and had an amazing breakfast sampler plate that will definitely hold us over for a while.

It was now time to join the Atlantic Coast Route again as we made our way out of Poughkeepsie. We have traveled far enough today and plan on attempting some more wild camping tonight since there are no lodging availability out in this area and there was no way I was staying in Poughkeepsie.