DAY 4 - PART I

We started of the day in the saddles at 6am, leaving right from camp. I always like being able to do that. We heard from several sources that the trail from Lake Easton (where we were) to Cedar Falls (where we were going)is clear, maintained, and easy to ride. We were really looking forward to today. Finally, what we were looking for. Well, about a mile into the trail we hit a patch of gravel everyone was having difficulty with in one way or another, but I proved to be the most dramatic by crashing, again. I don't know why I didn't notice that my feet were clipped into my pedals, because my first crash taught me well to keep one foot unclipped in gravel, just in case. I bruised my bruises again, but this time added cuts and scrapes. I'm feeling pretty beat up at this point, but we must keep moving onward. So, we wound up and around this mountainside, with the trail not being what we hoped for but slowly doable. . . for about another mile or so. Then the trail started getting narrow, mosquitos were loving us, we had to carry our bikes over fallen trees, and had to get out the gps to figure out the trail because there were forks in the path and nothing to indicate which way to go. The gps told us we were following mosquito creek . . . yes, we were.
We keep trying to move forward because it had to get better than this at some point. Well, we came to an overgrown area, had already walked through poison oak, the trail was gone and we were basically carrying and pushing our bikes through the woods, so we decided to turn back. We had been at this for over 2 hours and had only gone 4 miles. :(
So, back through the poison oak, back over the fallen trees, and back through the heavy gravel to get back to camp.
We packed up camp and headed to Seattle where we can ride bike paths that will hopefully not have any downed trees on them. :) We're making a plan to ride tonight after it cools down a little. Apparently there is a heat wave passing through Seattle. Judging from how the previous days have been for us . . . we're just in time!
We are having fun being together though. Our goal is to ride 200 miles altogether, so we have 92 to go between tonight and tomorrow. I think it's doable. I'll post part II later tonight.