DAY 4- to yakima we go

Let’s begin with our evening of the night of July 2
A few of us decided to put our tents along the side of the school. Sort of out of the wind and away from the generators that make noise. It wasn’t until we were going to bed that we realized that there was a radio going inside the school at a volume that you cannot go to sleep with. WE decided to move the tent because of that obnoxious radio going all night inside the school where we parked our tent
We moved the tent across a field to the track, which we (Renata and I) thought would be a good idea, see Renata’s tent died yesterday, and it was no longer function able, so she asked if she could bunk up with me. I thought no problem, but boy was last night ever long…the longest 4 hours I ever slept and the longest hours we did not. See, we figured if we moved our tent away from the school towards the baseball diamonds which have this lovely track around it we would be in the clear from being attacked by the sprinklers. Yesterday before supper, many tents were soaked because the sprinkler system came up during the day (which was supposed to be off)---many a people moved their tents and had long enough for them to dry. So last night, around 230am, the sprinklers on the field popped up, and you betcha, right into my tent, for we had the door open to screen door mode, 2 people in one tent creates ‘still, warm’ air, I thought better to have some ventilation. 230 I awake to sprinkler coming in the screen door and pouring down to my back and sleeping bag, what a cooling crazy awakening sensation! So I shook Renata awake, telling her we had to move the tent over…. She agrees, quite stunningly, for she was still in sleep mode…we move it over to have another sprinkler come up and at us….and we move the tent for a third time!! Then the wind started to pick up, and lightning started to really light up the tent, because we had moved the tent three times and just shuffled stuff around…we had issues with keeping the tent standing, for some of the tent poles kept bending in due to the wind and lack of spokes to hold the tent down.
WE ended up shuffling everything into my hockey bag, and headed in for a sleep inside the school. What a night, we fell asleep around 3:30 until 5 30… it felt a little weird waking up and getting ready on little sleep but once we started getting everything together and putting on cycling clothes you know you gotta keep on going. The ride today was absolutely beautiful. It was such a different view than from the lush green of the last few days. Imagine going from mountains with lots of trees and snow capped mountains to dry canyon areas, with rock side walls. The hills of today’s climb were most definitely more doable then the last two days, and we all arrived in good time. It was a very nice 68k ride with a lot of sun. Hilena, Stefanie and I rode together again, and we started practicing riding with no hands.

Stefanie needed to relieve herself along the way, and well, there is no place like the wild wilderness and brambles of the Yakima canyon.

The countryside is very beautiful and again, a stark contrast from where we just were.