Where Did I Leave Off?

Wednesday June 13

I'll pick it up right where I left off yesterday. We spent the evening at Caples Lake. There were many, many mosquitos. Some of them bit us and got away with their gross violations of our personal boundries, some of them bit us and paid the ultimate penalty for their transgressions, and there were others who never bit us at all, but we still killed them ruthlessly. I'm Okay with that, after all, it does say in the Good Book that "Bad company corrupts good character."

We slept very poorly. I'm afraid that we have not adjusted to lying on the ground quite a quickly as I had hoped. I think that I finally got some sleep after 2:00 am, and I think that the same may have been true for Riley. I also believe that he was awake every time that I stirred. As a result, when I woke up at about 6:00, I was in no hurry to roust Riley and get going - I thought that he may have been aleep. So we got our customary start of about the crack of 10:30.

While I was getting ready to shove off, I stood up and my back went, well I don't know "what it went" because there was no accommpanying sound. But I do know that my lower back instantly tightened up like a drum - very painful at times during certain movements. Fortunately, the position that my back feels the most comfortable, is the poor posture, slumped over forward position that one is naturally in when on a bicycle. I was able to ride today. It was another tough day.

We had about 4 1/2 miles to get to the top of Carson Pass. The grade wasn't very steep, but it was still a very tough ride. I'm convinced that the sea-level environment that we live in, versus the 8000' elevation that we've been riding in, makes for much of the difficulty.

We then got to experience the easiest 15 miles of the trip, dropping down the east side of the Sierras. We had a slight headwind for the rest of the day, and the remaining 30 or so miles into Carson City was still difficult, but managable.

Once in Carson City, we found a Trader Joe's and got ice cream, a bike shop and got new sunglasses for Dale, since he lost his on Monday or Tuesday, and an ATT phone store. Riley's phone was second hand, and the charging jack was funky and the battery was suspect, so Riley now has a new phone. It chapped my hide to do it (as earlier posts have discussed), but I feel pretty strongly that he should have a phone with him, and that his performance this week has been exemplary, so I broke down and went all the way with a smart-phone.

Mileages:
Day 1: 70
Day 2: 55
Day 3: 45
Day 4: 5
Day 5: 37
Day 6: 10
Day 7: 50

These sum of these numbers should be about 280. One mildly annoying thing that has happened often, is the ease with which my odometer gets reset to zero - not the cumulative total, but the trip mileage. And although I had wanted to reset the cumulative mileage before we left, that didn't happen. So, I know that according to my cycle computer we've covered 280 miles (give or take 2), as for the exact total each day, those are my best recollections.

Dale and Riley have been getting along very well. In fact the only real problem in the relationship is that Riley keeps beating Dale at chess, well he took something like 6 of the first 7 games, but Dale did begin to extract revenge by taking 2 at dinner.

Hey, I would like to have the opportunity to talk and/or exchange text messages with all of you loyal readers, unfortunately, time does not permit; so I type this blog, so that more people can keep updated. I'm amazed that there seems to be even more people reading this with some regularity, than the 3 or 4 whom I figured I could count on!

Tomorrow, we start across the desert!

Dale