Day 7: thank god rest day is tomorrow

-
Hey it’s your girl Julia again! So today was our longest day yet at 63 miles, where we had the pleasure of having 25 of those miles uphill. But hey we did it! And our quote of the day was “this isn’t as soul crushing as yesterday.”

To start off the day we woke up at the Omak Best Western, which let me just say was HEAVENLY to finally sleep in a real bed and not the ground. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy camping, but having multiple days of slanted ground where I felt like I was going to slide out of my tent was not the most restful night sleeps. 
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gEL5fLtwb-SZNdpxSHBpvVyTD-xqZi3J
Since today was going to be another rough day of uphills we gave our panniers to my parents, who graciously supported us today out of their car with food, extra water, and moral support. It was extremely appreciated! 

Our first adventure of the day consisted of us almost getting eaten by two vicious wolves….. ok they were actually two dogs and one of them was probably the size of a Chihuahua, but hey still terrifying. 

The first little tiny dog ran right up to our bikes, but we are just too fast that we got away #needforspeed. The second dog however was a giant German Shepard that first went for Dustin, but he’s speedy and got away. He then however spotted Brian and I and made a beeline for us, to which I screamed, Brian screamed, I screamed louder, the dog got a little startled and we zoomed away within inches of being attacked. Quite the way to get our adrenaline pumping. 
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hQGHTCM4M3DEHy2pWdRydvh_OGZphhRw
The rest of the day mostly consisted of making our trek uphill to Wauconda Pass at 4,310ft elevation, which went surprisingly well! We are slowly getting stronger and showing these hills who’s the boss. The hills, though, are the best catfishes around because you may think you see a flat up ahead after an uphill….LIES! It’s still an uphill that is disguised as a flat. 
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=129lvXrhs9r1oB26QYsYSeUmfRtPk237K
Today, I also shared with Brian and Dustin that up until this past fall (like 2021), I hadn’t ridden a bike since 6th grade and I was actually terrified of bikes. Yep, you heard that right folks. I signed up for this trip not really knowing how to ride a bike and actually having a fear of them. But, hey look at me now! I learned how to bike and I’m almost on the other side of the Rockies! 
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cfIHvWKnd4T0uZk_Iy-d2mZvN8_krBky
Tonight we are staying at our first Warm Showers, which is basically like Airbnb, but for cyclists. Diane and Boyd opened up their home to us to stay in for the next two nights as we take our rest day in Republic, WA. They are the most lovely people that cooked us a delicious home cooked meal from mushrooms they picked themselves. We enjoyed staying up and chatting with them and hearing all their incredible stories of their life and family through the years. 

Today has been a great day, and can’t wait to see what our rest day brings because there is a town festival tomorrow! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 52: WE ARE HOME!

-
Image
It’s the one and only Julia! Today is the day - we are finally home (I mean we still have to bike to the coast tomorrow, but that’s a later problem because tonight we finally can sleep in our own beds!) It has just been a surreal day. We only had 39 miles to home, so the end was very much in sight. Personally, I thought that today was going to be nice and easy since it’s a short day…. HA these routes always be playing. The whole first part of the day was straight uphill. Gotta love those nice 8% grades to kick off a day. Don’t worry, though, there was no tears or fear of vomiting so I call it a success! (Oh it was also raining all day, but it was actually pretty nice to have it cool us off) We were then blessed for the rest of the ride with mostly downhills. It was *chef’s kiss* beautiful. The night before Dustin and I were going back and forth about what route to take, and I will admit that Dustin was right and after the beginning, his route was basically all chill and downhill. (Dust...
Read more

Day 53: the last blog

-
Image
Hey y’all - it’s Dustin, sorry the blog is late for the last one… probably because the rest of our day started like this:  Anyway: so we got up and left for our last ride to the beach around 830 - our friend Lenny was a trooper and decided he would ride with us the 44 miles to hammonaset and he did an awesome job! He did so well that we went too fast and how to slow down so we didn’t get there before the welcoming committee. We were getting a bunch of angry texts telling us we were too fast so we stopped for ice cream at Ashley’s which is supposedly the best in CT - it was pretty good - I got peach and there were also frozen pieces of peach in the ice cream which is nice! Also - in a desperate attempt to keep the trip going (I don’t know why she would want to do that) Julia decided to run over some glass and get a flat tire! Her first since Washington state, and the groups first since Montana - I think she did it on purpose…  Anyway, after our entourage finally showed up at th...
Read more

Day 51: Border hopping

-
Image
If you read yesterdays blog you know that we started super early, around 7:15 am versus our usual 9:30. Well we decided to one up ourselves yet again and started at 6:30 today. That meant getting up at 5 and while it’s obvious that we like torturing our bodies because we decided to do this trip, sleep is sacred and I am tired. Why did we wake up at these god forsaken times? Because we have been avoiding the heat wave that’s been hitting the rest of the country all summer and we have the privilege of riding right into it the past few days. Today was no exception with the high being 93 degrees, hot for just enjoying the outside, and overbearing for riding 80 miles in. But with the end in sight we dug deep and got all of our stuff together with bleary eyes to begin our day. Special shout-out to the Crafts for being some of the best hosts that we’ve had on the trip! An amazing dinner last night, a huge breakfast at the crack of dawn, showers, beer, drying our tents for us, and anything els...
Read more