Something is off today. Actually two things are off - team A and team S. This was a planned rest day in Jamestown. Our timing was fortuitous, there was a torrential downpour in the morning. So far we have been very skillful at avoiding nasty weather. For breakfast we ate the spoils of yesterday's trip to the Farm Fresh supermarket. Viktoriya is always trying to prepare healthy food, Alain and Kerry are always trying to enjoy junk food. Any food tastes good when you are warm and dry inside while it is pouring and blowing outside.

Another thing that is off is our millage. If you ride a bike and think you know how far you have traveled, you are mistaken. Two identical model GPS units mounted on single tandem yield different results. Not different on some rides, different on every ride. GPS and wheel rotation counting odometers also yield different results on every ride. Today however there was unanimous agreement that our bike mileage was zero.

We went over to Historic Jamestown (on the actual location of Jamestown), as opposed to Jamestown Settlement (a much more popular recreation down the road a mile or so from Historic Jamestown). Team S took advantage of their youthful age to buy National Park senior passes to gain entrance to Historic Jamestown. The senior pass has no expiration date and costs only $10 - what a great deal! We plan to make use of the passes at several historic battlefields during the next week.

The archaeological dig sites at Jamestown were covered with tarps. The day of a downpour is not an ideal time to visit if you want to see archaeologists in action, but the overcast weather was quite pleasant to walk around in. Even though schools are out for summer vacation the site was not crowded.

We learned the origin of the expression "over the counter". Before Arabic numerals were in common use merchants would use tokens and a counting board featuring rows for units, tens, hundreds and thousands to perform arithmetic. Not as elegant as an abacus, but it beats doing math using Roman Numerals. At least we think we learned the true origin of the phrase. Are factoids gleaned from museums any more reliable than what you pick up on Wikipedia?