Hi everyone and welcome to days 72 and 73! These were our last few days of the trip, so while a lot of us are very tired from biking and ready to go home soon, we are also trying to really take these last few days in and enjoy our time together as a team. Day 72 was one of our hardest days of the trip with 91 miles of biking and over 7000 feet of elevation. The riders faced multiple long, steep and windy climbs throughout the day, and the first half of the day before getting the coast again was also quite hot. Thankfully for me, I was the van driver for the day again, but I can say with full confidence that all of the riders did amazing on this very hard day and accomplished something not a lot of people are capable of.

The first part of the day we went through more redwood forests which provided some nice shade and scenery. We did not get to see any wildlife but we did stumble onto a Bigfoot… statue.

Our second rest stop of the day happened to be at the Confusion Hill which is the home of the apparently “world-famous” Gravity House. We were allowed to go though the Gravity House for free by the owner but were not particularly impressed, most likely because the expectations were sky high after people found out that the cartoon series “Gravity Falls” was inspired by this place. We still had plenty of fun there though and were glad we got to visit this place.

Nevertheless, Confusion Hill gave the riders an opportunity to rest before continuing their long day of biking. The last third of the ride went along the coast which was much more pleasant for the riders as it was much cooler and they got to enjoy some very nice views of the ocean.

The day ended up being very long, so after we got to our stayover in Fort Bragg and ate our generously donated by them dinner, all we had energy for was going to sleep. Thanks to the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Bragg for the dinner!

Day 73 started out a little rough for our riders as they were still not quite recovered from the previous day. Despite that, we all got ready to bike our 77 miles to Cloverdale. We did not have any climbing the first half of the riding and had a very pretty ride along the coast again the first 20 miles. Right before heading back inland we biked through a patch of the coast that was very foggy out of nowhere. It was a very atmospheric ride and one of my own personal favorite riding moments of the whole trip.

After getting back inland, the temperatures started climbing way up again so by the time we got to our biggest climbs it was almost 100 degrees. It was a tough ride but we got to see lots of Californian vineyards along the way, so overall it was not all that bad.

Our stayover in Cloverdale was the Cloverdale Veterans Building which was very nice to us and provided us with both showers and dinner. Afterwards, we rested and got physically and emotionally ready for our upcoming last full day of the trip.

-Valerie