Day 6

Total Miles: 60

We woke up after a night of terrible sleep in spandex; needless to say, I am never sleeping in biking shorts again. We ate breakfast at Safeway that morning and enjoyed Starbucks’ coffee. According to my memory, this was THE BEST DAY EVER! We began the morning biking along the highway, but eventually ventured off into a cherry orchard after crossing a terrifying bridge that I walked over. We had some tough climbs due to the hilly terrain, but for the most part I remember smiling up all the hills and soaking up the sun. A few memorable moments of the day included, trying to lick my elbow, flying down a huge hill, Jacob almost getting hit by a semi-truck, stopping at a campground for water/bathroom break/snacks, and then crossing another terrifying bridge.

        This time however, we crossed the bridge into Washington and stopped to eat ice cream and local cherries in Biggs. It was the best snack, especially since we only had to go downhill for a ways, and then were at our stop for the night, small town, Rufus. We went downhill for 20 miles and found a great park to sleep in next to a school and a gas station. We made burritos for dinner that night, which I really enjoyed, and then Jacob led a few of us in yoga and abs. That night Kiana and I biked to the gas station, brushed our teeth, and went to the bathroom, then bought milk and cookies. It was really nice to be at camp by 7pm with 60 miles done, it meant we were getting faster. 

Day 5

65 miles

Today we left from Portland, unfortunately without Jackie. She decided it was time for her to go home; we are all going to miss her very much. We biked through some beautiful hills and ended up at the Vista House. It is a really beautiful building that overlooks an amazing forest. I also got my official nature name, "slug", because the floor of the forest was covered in slugs. I really enjoyed them because they were moving so slowly on the ground, I felt like they were appreciating every moment in life, which is what I was trying to do.

The day seemed so long. We saw beautiful waterfalls on our way down from the Vista House, we ate lunch at a nearby park, we saw a fish hatchery, we played a letter game to keep ourselves entertained, and we met a man with really cute dogs. We asked him if there would be more hills or if we should get on the highway. He said there weren’t any hills and it would be a relatively easy ride. Maybe if I were in a car this would be true; however, there was a huge hill, so big that three of us had to walk up it-- even walking was difficult.

Finally we made it to the highway, and from there we were able to go a lot faster, but it was getting dark outside. As soon as the sun set, Alex got a flat tire on the side of the highway. We had to wait for him and David to fix it, luckily they are super quick at changing flat tires so we didn’t wait too long. We were back moving and I was starting to get tired, which also meant I was getting cranky. We made it into a town, Hood River, and went to the grocery store to eat dinner. To get to the Safeway we had to bike up another HUGE hill, at this point I wanted to throw my bike. 

Once we got to the Safeway, Alex and I played in the kids grocery cart, then begged the store to stay open so we could eat. We had a really “nice” dinner. We found a nice park to camp in for the night. Kiana and I thought we would try sleeping in our bike shorts to save time in the morning and the boys tried to all sleep in the same tent so they could get to bed faster. All night, the park sprinklers were spraying our tent, but it was so hard that the walls of our tent were falling in. The almost perfect park turned out not to be that great, but we did accomplish 65 miles!