Friday, August 5th, 2016
This morning Maren dedicated our ride to her papa, Stan Morgan. He passed from liver cancer 5 years ago and August 8 is b her nana and papa’s anniversary. Since we are done riding on the 7th, we rode for him today.
The morning started out a bit chilly, but perfect riding weather. However, we started to smell smoke around mile 14 and learned that there was a wildfire in the area. We ended up shuttling 50 miles in order to avoid low air quality. During our wait, we hung out at a Starbucks, where we talked to a lot of people about what we were doing and why. It created a lot of great conversations and the employees were kind and gave some of us our drinks for free.
It was a bit tough getting back on the bike after such a long wait, but we finished the last 27 miles strong. We climbed through some mountains and over rolling hills, enjoying the change in scenery from the last two flatter days.
We all did a great job of just enjoying our time with each other despite the change in plans, and being positive about the parts of the ride that we did complete.
In the home stretch!
DR