Day 13: Beautiful ride, but weird evening. 47 miles

Hello 3rd graders, families, and friends!

I am sitting in a laundromat in Fort Bragg California doing laundry and getting caught up on yesterday's blog.  Yesterday was a challenging day.  It seems like once a week so far I have a more challenging day than usual.  It's usually the day before I plan to take a day off from riding.  Today I am taking a day off.  I rode a couple miles this morning to get breakfast but my body and mind need a rest today.  Below are the events from yesterday, day 13.

Below is a picture of our "cycling camp" from the night of day 12.  It was so nice!  There was power to charge phones, battery packs, bike lights, computers, and whatever else.  It had been days for some of us since we've had power.  Another thing that was fun were the diversity of the people in camp.  I have found that the majority of the people cycling this route are from other countries.  They have all been very nice people and have been fun to hang out with and talk with.

As you can see from the tracking map Hank and I started the day with a lot of hill climbing.  The hill we climbed is the highest hill on the entire trip at 2,000 feet above sea level.  After day 12 we were already some of the way up the 2,000 foot hill, but we still had quite a bit to go. It was challenging but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been.  The thing that made it a bit less challenging was that the hill was a gradual climb for a few hours rather than a super steep climb over only a mile or two.  Once we got about 25 miles into our day the hills were done and we were back at the ocean for the first time in a couple days.

Below is a picture of one of the MANY switchbacks Hank and I had to climb.  We just kept going back and forth and back and forth and up and up and up for MILES!  It was such a great feeling to get to the top.  We celebrated with a snack break.  Hank doesn't eat much though. ;)

Hank was so excited to see the ocean again that he made me stop and get a picture of him with the ocean in the background.  We both love the ocean so much!  Riding along the ocean usually means a nice cool breeze and almost always a fantastic view.  Looking ahead at the map we will be along the ocean almost all the way to San Francisco.

After we got to the ocean we had a very pleasant ride down the coast to the super small town of Westport (population maybe 100).  We stopped at a little store that had burger and snacks.  After I ate my burger I noticed a tick in my forearm!!  I have never had a tick latch onto me before.  I wasn't sure what to do.  It was a really small one but it still freaked me out!  I asked a couple biker friends what they thought.  They were helpful but we weren't what sure I should do to make sure I didn't get an infection.  Also, ticks can carry Lyme Disease, which is not fun from what I hear.  So I decided I would ride 20 miles to Fort Bragg and go to a clinic and have a doctor take care of it for me.  So Hank and I start peddling like crazy to get there before the clinic closed and because I was fairly freaked out about this little tick in my arm!  Wouldn't you know it though another challenge had to be thrown our way...two miles down the road our first flat tire of the trip!  It was the front and we were going down hill.  I had just been talking with some of the other riders yesterday about how I hadn't had a flat yet...here it was...GRRR!

It took about an hour to fix the flat because I had a hard time finding what caused the flat.  I have always been told to find what caused the flat otherwise you might put in a new tube and just get another flat right away.  I finally found the tiny TINY hole but it was in a weird place.  Nothing actually poked through the tire, the hole was on the inside away from the ground, so that was weird. It was nice that a few of my new cycling friends stopped by and checked on me as they were riding by.  Cyclists are such nice people!  (If any of my new cycling friends are reading this...you're awesome...it was so nice to meet you and hang out with you!)

So with flat tire fixed I still had the tick in my arm and roughly 18 miles to go to get to the clinic that closed soon.  Hank and I peddled like crazy!  Then we started having issues with gears!!  I would shift on a hill and it wouldn't go into the gear I wanted.  This made the hills very hard to ride.  I stopped and made a few adjustments, but I don't know too much about adjusting gears, so it was a "learn as you go" experience.  I tried to assure Hank that the flat tire wasn't his fault, nor was the gear issue, but I think he was feeling bad about it.  He tries so hard to please me!  He does a great job!  He is my best friend on this trip and we have some great conversations.  I kept telling him it wasn't his fault and everything was happening for a reason.  He didn't talk much the rest of the day.  He seems fine today though.

We got into Fort Bragg too late to see a doctor about the tick, so I stopped by a fire station but there was nobody there.  It was rolling around 7 pm and I hadn't eaten and I hadn't figured out where we were going to stay the night.  At this point we were too far from any campgrounds, so we found a hotel for the night, had a shower, had a meal, and stopped by a drug store and got some supplies to remove the tick myself and clean and disinfect the area.  I got it out but I was still a little freaked out. I got some really good advice from a nurse friend of mine (thank you Ricki!), so I was able to relax a little after that.  I will just keep the bite area clean and keep antibiotic ointment on it and I should be fine.

It was a challenging day, but I expected to have many challenges along the way.  Isn't that what life is?  Coming up to challenges and finding ways to get past them?  I think so.  Small challenges or huge challenges can be overcome.  One thing I always tell myself when a challenge comes up that seems overwhelming is "It won't always be this way" or "It won't always feel this way".  Things are always changing in life.  We just have to do our best at everything we do and everything will play out the way it is supposed to.

My laundry is done and so is this blog!  

More to come soon!!