Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday.....

Friday July 4th 2008
Happy Birthday Melanie…. I hope you had a great weekend at home……and what do you think about that thing I got you?
So, on Friday we left Yakima, and headed to Sunnyside Washington. The ride was through lovely countryside, many vineyards, orchards and hops fields were passed, as well as a good many of fields filled with cows, which means your nostrils fill with the smell of those four legged beasts, interestingly so, for many kilometres that smell permeates into you and then you become habituated to the smell and you realize you no longer smell the smell. The morning started with a thundershower causing our stuff to be wet before we packed it up, but those are the breaks and that’s what happens when you camp for 9 weeks straight. The weather after the rain had subsided was fair and lovely. Most days this week we have reached the high 90’s and low 100’s which makes it warm to bike in, although the humidity is not here so that I am thankful for.
When we arrived to the school we set up tents and got our gear in order, and because of the rain our bikes were quite filthy so they deserved a cleaning before we cleaned ourselves…the spray from the bikes in front of you can get you pretty good, we had a good bit of road dirt on us. WE have entered the area where there are these things called ‘goat’s heads’- they are a type of thorn or nuisance weed, that releases these pods that are hard and have two sharp needle like prongs sticking out of them, they are about the size of ‘nerds’ (the candy) and they cause a good many of flats, for they puncture right through your tire into your tube….this caused a lot of flats, upwards of the high teens, and Saturday there were 30 flats.
After getting a spic and span clean, we went out for ice-cream- Len (Pastor), Jonathan, Joshua, Lawrence, Stephanie and I all went into town (on our bikes, for this is our only mode of transportation) and had the best ice cream I have had in a long time. Maybe it is because we don’t really have access to it, or possibly just that we were quite hungry.
For supper, the local church put on a Mexican meal for us. It was a nice way to end the day and be somewhere else other than on the grounds we tent at (and yes we biked there too, about 1-2 km).
After supper we had a group meeting, and then we headed to the fireworks, for it is Independence Day. The fire works were good, and it was just a really good evening with every one going out with everyone, seems that we are becoming more community like.
I almost have everyone’s name down; it is quite hard for some people blend with others.
Another church, on our way to the fire works also provided us with root beer floats. That was a very nice gesture on there part. While we were all drinking root beer floats, I somehow got in the middle of a circle of people and they all closed in on me and started pushing my shoulders so I would go round and round….this made me feel like I was being bullied…. When all the fun activities had finished we were required to put our bikes in the gym of the school we were staying at, just to keep them safe, for we were right of the road.
Sometimes, I take my bike into my tent with me, so that I don’t have to lock it to a tree or a post at night.


Saturday - Ride in from Sunnyside to Kennewick
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! A postcard is in the mail, we will see when you get it.
Today was a good ride, there were a lot of rolling hills and it didn’t take that long to go through the country side to get to the next destination. A park in Kennewick right by the water. The weather was high 90’s again, but we took it easy with a lot of stops along the way and interestingly joined groups of riders and left others behind as they stopped. The core group I rode with today was Joshua, Kyle, Stephanie and Jenna. We kept a good pace and enjoyed each others company, at times singing and just joking our way to the next stop. When we got to a little town along the way we decided to stop for a drink, I had the best cup of iced cappuccino chain in ever such a long time. It was so delightfully good. WE also ate cherries that are grown in the local area. Agatha and Julie rode with us for a while, and just to let you know Agatha is 77 and a machine!! This lady can outride a good many of the people on this tour, young and old. She is very fit, and does speed skating in the winter. She is amazing!
That afternoon at the Kennewick Park, we had access to the Columbia River, which was right by where we were camping. So far all the waters we swim in are chilly, and this was no exception, you get Goosebumps on your way in, and you just stay in to bring your core temperature down. After that we went to the showers that they provided for us at the health club that they shuttled us to and from….it was such a glorious shower that Steph and I stayed there extra long, and got extra clean, it was just nice to get really clean instead of always in these communal high school shower rooms that we have everyday.
Saturday night I was on sweep, which requires you to come early to set up for supper, serve supper and clean up from supper….our sweep team has about 10-12 people on it. It really helps with the running of this camp like situation that we are all in , it also helps you get to know everyone better and mixes up the combinations of people.
Saturday night we went out for some beverages and the place we went to also had karaoke. Many people participated and we all had such a good evening out. The funny thing is, generally towns are a little away from where we camp (5km or so) and we need to bike. This time we walked there and back and were home (tent home) by 1 something.

Sunday July, 6th 2008
Today we had our second celebration rally. This morning I had sweep team again, and served breakfast to all the hungry cyclist. Our day of rest, our day off…its been well deserved. In the morning we had church in the park, and it was great to see many of the locals come out and support the tour and how open everyone was to us. Lunch was put on by the local church and then they had activities for us to do in the afternoon. Some people went tubing, wakeboarding, waterskiing or floating down the river on pool noodles. I had originally signed up for floating down the river and then found out it was just the one out side the campsite we were staying at, and that is frigid cold water. So I opted out and stuck around the campsite, took a nap, wrote in my journal, wrote some postcards and just tidied up my laundry baskets that are on the gear truck. It is amazing all that goes on in the two laundry baskets and the rearranging of the items that happens all the time. Supper came and went, and then we had another peleton meeting, these are somewhat becoming even more funny, as we are continuing with trying to make statistics for the days ride, as well this is when we get the next day’s ride sheet, which has on it where we are to turn, the distance we ride on each road and the elevation of the land. The elevations are somewhat helpful, but sometimes they just make you worry about things you don’t need to until you get there. In all Sunday was a restful day and I am thankful that we had the day off from riding.

Monday July 7, 2008-07-07
Today we rode in 38 degree dry weather. It was a warm day and we went through a lot of liquid to satisfy our bodies need to quench our thirst. The first 30km of the ride was right into headwinds so we rotated quite frequently through who was pulling. I rode with Kaitlyn, Jenna and Stephanie today. We went along the water for at least half of the way which helped in keeping us cool because the wind was coming over the water, as soon as we turned to head towards Pendleton, we started into the heat wave. The ride was windy with many hills up and down. It was nice riding through the wheat, dill and ploughed fields. Kaitlyn and I saw dirt devils and I took a mini video of that (I will upload photos and the video at a local library as it takes a long time to do it via sea to sea satellite. For the last 25 km, Kaitlyn and I rode together and kind of bogeyed up and down the hills, peddling as fast as we could on the down hill, and coasting or riding as far as we could up the next. The school we are staying at tonight is bright yellow and we could see it from miles away, since it is up on a hill. We arrived mid afternoon and set up our tents right away so as to not to just crash just where we were.
Today, 3 boys, Reuben, Joshua, and Nick rode back to the town we came from (Sunnyside) and then all the way to where we are staying today. Over 281 km they rode, into headwinds and in this heat, they went because one of them had forgotten some of their stuff and medications in the last stop which was to be delivered via UPS to the next stop which never made it on time…so they went back as a group and were accountable to Bill back at camp every hour. They managed to hydrate themselves with almost 60 bottles of water and made sure they ate enough…they are my heroes!!


OHHH as an aside, I fell today, again. When I was wiping off my tires cause we went through a lot of glass today, so I wiped off my front tire no problem then I reached under my seat to wipe off my rear tire, and then my hand got sucked down by my tire and my hand acted as a brake. I put a wicked skid mark on the road, and then fell over with my bike still clipped to my peddles and my hands still on the handle bars…flipped over like a turtle is what it really looked like.
That’s all for my aside!
Thank you all for your prayers and support, I hope you are enjoying all that you read and again I will put up photos later when the internet is working better or I head to a library for faster uploading.