DISTANCE TRAVELED: 31.52 Miles
AVERAGE SPEED: 6.79 MPH

          Throughout the night I had wakened up numerous times to the sound of rain on the tent and at 7:15, it was different! I stayed in bed as I heard Lou walking around outside thinking about how bad it would be to have to pack up in the rain. By 7:30 the rain had stopped so I rushed to pack up everything inside my tent and then take down my tent before the next stage of rain came down. I dried everything off as well as I could for being in the clouds on the high ridge and then sealed off my dry bags for the rest of the day. Breakfast consisted of fruit from a can and dry cereal, which did not fill me up. As we ate, the rain started again and the clouds became thicker so we could see only 30 yards. Once again, I was covered in my Gore-Tex to keep dry. We filled our water bottles with the water that had run off the tarp and then took down the tarp forcing us to stand in the rain. The final chore before beginning to ride again was to load up my BOB. We all pushed our bikes through the grass back to the road at 9:00 and then pushed along the side of the road through the grasses. (Picture195) Later on, we began to push through the muddy streams that ran where trucks had left tire ruts. The running water kept our wheels clean so we could push on. (Picture196) Soon, Scott stopped and his front derailleur fell off which explained why his chain had been slipping the day before. My bike at this time was covered in mud just like everyone else's. (Picture197) As we removed the derailleur, the rain came harder and the wind increased which surprisingly did not help to make the visibility any better. Because of the cold, I even put on my Gore-tex gloves for the first time. As a result, my hands were much warmer that everyone else's. When we were done, we pushed on through the mud and finally the roads began to get better. We thought that we were home free when there was yet another encounter of a 200 yard long hill covered with clay. All three of my tires became so covered with mud that none of them would spin. The mud was so thick at this point, that I didn't even have to put my bike down when I stopped. I just turned the front wheel, and the entire bike stood! (Picture198) Four times, I pried mud from the brakes so that the wheels could spin for a few steps. Finally, Lou came back to help me and we carried both my BOB and my bike past the bad mud into the grass. Here, I took 30 minutes and cleaned the mud from most moving parts and then pushed again through he grass. It was now 12:00 and we had gone only 5 miles. We meandered through the pine trees to escape more bad sections and I hit a slippery branch and fell over. After one more section of muddy ruts, (Picture199) the road turned into rocks and then changed again to good gravel. I tried to shift but could not so I stopped again and pried out mud and oiled everything. After forcing parts to move, I was on my way again and rode along the good road downhill for about ten miles where I met up with Scott and Mike who had gone ahead. We continued riding up the road. We planned on riding 12 miles out of our way in one direction to get food. Then we stopped to ask some hunters for directions. They had been hunting antelope for 250 yards with muskets! The even had one in the back of their truck. As we talked to them, they told us how to go and when finding out how much we did not want to go out of our way, they told us that since they were driving home, they would be able to give us food. We got ham, Spam, tortillas, Oreos, pudding, and candy to help get us on our way. We began riding again toward Tousus Creek where we were supposed to have been at the day before. This potentially muddy road had dried out during the day so we were lucky to be able to ride on it. As we rode along, we had gone 4 miles and what we had originally though to be only 6 miles total turned out to be 12! We rode on and Scott and I pulled ahead. Soon we stopped since it was 7:45 and it was getting dark. We waited for Mike who came along soon and then waited for 20 minutes, for Tom, Marnie, and Lou. By this time, it was very dark and we were still 4 miles from Tousus Creek. We all decided to camp in a cow pasture next to a lone tree with dead wood piled next to it. By the time I had finished setting up my tent, it was completely dark outside so we got a fire going with the semi-dry wood and ate ham sandwiches, pudding, and fruit for dinner. Since this was Marie and my night to cook, once again we got off easy! When we were done eating, no one sat around the fire, but instead we all went straight to bed at 9:00 since we had had two straight days of riding until 8:00. We were now, after our second day of riding, to the place where we should have been in one day!