July 5, 2010
We rode 60 miles today from Sunset Beach State Park to Humbug Mountain State Park. The first 13 miles were pretty rough, but after that the terrain turned into hills we can manage pretty well now. We got a late start this morning (about 11am). Most likely because we were up pretty late again chatting around the campfire (this time with Megan and Moira). Again it was really great having some other cyclists around to talk to and swap stories with. The hiker/biker camp was in a bog last night and I got eaten up by mosquitoes, but the fire was nice and the conversation was good. Tonight we got a regular campsite since we needed to recharge our electronics. Either way, I don’t think there is anyone in the hiker/biker camp over here. Everyone that we’ve come across is now behind us, I’m assuming they’ll catch up to us in the next few days. I’m pretty proud of what Taka and I have done these last few days. We have ridden over 50 miles for the last two days and then broke the 60 mile mark today. Again we’re tired, but we know that we can keep going.
Before I left for this trip, I was excited about being out in nature for so long, about getting back into shape, about all the scenery I was going to get to take in, and about all the people I would come across. I knew that cycling so many miles day in and day out would be tiring physically and mentally, but you can never prepare yourself without actually doing it. For the past couple of weeks the nature surrounding me and the people I’ve been meeting have been great, but there has always been a persistent thought in the back of my mind that we were in a rush to get to our next camping spot. We’re probably the slowest cyclists out of anyone that we’ve met, so we’ve been working double-time to cover the terrain every day. It wasn’t about competing with the others; most of them have clearly been cycling for years and are just in better shape. It’s about moving at the pace that I want to move at. If I take a low mileage day, I want it to be because I decided to take that quick day and enjoy the scenery, not because I couldn’t manage to finish the day out.
I’m mentioning this because as I wrote earlier, we started late today, but we finished with plenty of sunlight left and covered the most distance we’ve done the entire trip thus far. The terrain may not have been the worst today, but it certainly wasn’t level either. After about 40 miles into today’s ride, we returned to a sea stack lined coast and I was really able to enjoy it the way I envisioned enjoying it before I left for this ride. I’m sitting outside in Mount Humbug State Park, it’s cold and windy, but I really am enjoying it instead of wondering how much sleep I need to recover properly for tomorrow. In other words, I feel like I’m finally getting into the groove of the trip I wanted and I’m soaking it in right now.
On another note, today was Taka’s birthday. We didn’t pass any major cities today, so we were unable to get a proper meal or anything to celebrate. Hopefully we will find something tomorrow night in Brookings.
-Chris