We got a late start, which ended up being okay once we got on the light rail at the airport and recognized how crowded it would be with our fully loaded bikes. On our way to the light rail station, we took a side path because we took a wrong turn, and it was nice gravelly sandy dirt. Suddenly, it turned to very loose, deep sand, and I went down hard. This alleviated my fears about falling with my loaded bike, because my feet both instinctively came out of the pedals, and I wasn't hurt at all (the bruises emerged later).
The ride to Hillsborough took 1.5 hours. I learned how to brace my bike by putting my feet next to the wheels like tire chucks. Once in Hillsborough, we had to navigate through some traffic and city roads to get to our country road route. One intersection stands out in my mind, and still makes me cringe when I think of it. One of those "there but for the grace of god" moments when you realize you could have been really hurt, but are so grateful you weren't. We came up to a light, where we needed to go straight. We were in the right-turn lane, on the left side of it, waiting for the light to turn so we could go across. The light in front of us turned green, and traffic coming from the left/west had stopped, Without thinking, we both popped into the intersection. Before we had gone more than a bicycle length, we both realized we had made a serious mistake. The traffic coming from the right/east had NOT stopped, and the car in the east-bound turn lane honked at us as we stopped in front of them. We waved, said sorry, and waited until it was clear to finish crossing. Phew! That could have been so bad. Note to self: Green does not always mean go. We are both used to the green arrow saying turn, and the green light saying go forward. Our brains had automatically taken the green light as a signal to MOVE. I still shake thinking about it.
Still carrying that unsettled, near-death feeling, we rolled to Carlton through farm lands, pastures, hay fields in various states of mowing, ornamental tree nurseries with rows of brilliantly colored foliage, and fruit farms. The fruit farms were delightful with all of their strategies for keeping thieving birds at bay. There were the usual vast swaths of netting, and the whirligigs and streamers of reflective foil. Our favorite was the tiny loudspeakers scattered throughout a field, emitting the cries of birds! There were screeches of hawks and other predators, and the warning cries of small birds. I was looking in the sky for all of these birds but saw none. I laughed, remembering the blue jay of my childhood that learned the red tailed hawk scream to scare away all the chickadees and juncos from the bird feeder...
Carlton was a cross-roads town, which we've learned is a good sign for cyclists wanting provisions. On my list from research was a bakery, a chocolate shop, and two grocery/deli stores. The bakery was the standout. We got my birthday treat here: shortbread cookies (chai flavor and lavender flavor) and a chocolate filled croissant-type roll. We checked out all the other options for lunch--Jay was set on tuna and avocado--we went back to the bakery because they made their own bread and the other stores were using regular sliced bread. Oh my their veggie-hummus-pesto sandwich was fantastic, on these enormous slabs of bread.
Next we needed to find ingredients for dinner tonight. Jay: You can find those couscous packages pretty much anywhere. Not in Carlton. Evidently they hadn't gotten the memo. We did find a quinoa/rice pre-cooked meal packet that would be perfect with the dehydrated refried beans we had, so that's what we got. Yay! On our way! Time is burning, and we have a huge hill looming before we get to camp. Not to mention our late start... Oops Jay has a flat (Flats: Jay 3, Emily 1). This flat was the same as the one I had in the Palouse: a small metal wire curved perfectly to stick in a tire. My theory is that they are wires from the big semi-truck tires that blow out.... We go back to the bakery to fix the flat and have a beverage. Okay, now on our way with a sense of urgency. It is now after 5 pm.
This is a serous climb, up to 1800 feet with unfriendly grades. Thankfully light traffic, because the shoulder was, well, the bushes! Lots of time to think My left knee started hurting. I wondered why, and chalked it up to my ancient age of 50 (today!). then I remembered the sand incident from earlier, and that I landed on my left leg. I looked down at a stop, and saw the red mark across my knee. My workaround was to pedal standing up every once in a while to give my knee a break. I also concentrated on pedaling consistently round, instead of up and down. And making sure my leg wasn't angling in or out too much. I just kept following Jay, who was plugging away in front of me, always the motivation. :)
Motto: Always Say Yes. About halfway up the mountain, a couple came alongside us in a white suv, rolled own the passenger window, and a woman said they were a mile up the road and would be out on their porch if we wanted to stop and rest and refresh. "Thanks!" We said, and pedaled on. When we got to their house, they called out, "There they are! Want to stop?" Jay hollered out, "No thank you, we have a long way to go and the day is beginning to fade." We both wanted to keep going, fearing losing our momentum.
About 1/10th of a mile down the road (we could still hear their dogs barking a couple turns back), Jay's tire went flat again (flats: Jay 4, Emily 1). We both said, "We should have stopped!" Because we would be sitting fixing flats and drinking ice water with them! So we agreed to adopt an always say yes attitude from that moment forward. Accept what is offered, be open to what the universe brings
While Jay fixed the flat, I repaired the tube from earlier in the day. This flat was due to a leaking repair, a repair that Jay had viewed skeptically to begin with...
The never-ending hill finally ended, sort of, and we saw this stunning reservoir lake at the top. But we kept climbing, and even the down hills necessitated pedaling. Very strange. We entered forests, it got darker, and we were out of water.
Finally our campground appeared on our left, and we explored with headlamps to find our site and set up camp while eating fragrant shortbread cookies. Jay makes a delicious bean/rice dish on his magic stove. We were camped by a lovely little creek, surrounded by berries.
I washed shorts and socks for the next day, and looked forward to picking berries in the morning to go with our cereal
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