IT ALL LOOKS UP HILL - DAY 2

We started out the day at 5am, but the sun rises around 4 here. David cooked us a good breakfast and we head out right from the camp we stayed at - St. John's, WA. We had several turns to make to wind us around the countryside to get to our destination. We planned a 60 mile route. The first road was awesome! Smooth, fast, a beautiful morning for riding. We polished off 10 miles in about 45 minutes. Then, our first turn . . . onto a gravel road. Not too bad. A little washboardish, but doable. We were making pretty good time and following the route as planned. As we wove our way throughout the countryside, we happened upon our first hill that was quite big. We ended up walking it. We got back into no man's land for real. We saw maybe 5 cars the entire morning. The hills kept getting bigger and bigger and we felt a little cheated because you know that what goes up must come down . . . but that wasn't always the case. We crossed the JWP Trail about 6 times today and each time we were thankful to be on the gravel road rather than that trail. At one point, we came upon a sign that said road closed 10 miles ahead, but we were certain that our next turn came long before that. Well, we kept going and going, but there were no turn off roads, let alone the one we needed. At this point it's starting to get pretty hot outside and we've travelled about 35 miles. I also need to mention that this is desert, platue (sp?) country . . . there's not a tree for shade in sight. We came upon the closed road, and could do nothing but keep moving forward . . . because we sure as heck weren't going to go back all those miles! So now we're on the closed road. It's a rough gravel road. Did I mention that we were going uphill? I don't know what happened, but my chain froze up and I couldn't get my feet out of my clips, so down I went! My feet popped right out of those clips at that point and freed up my chain! I bruised the insides of both my knees and got a scrape/punch on the side of my chin as my face hit the end of the handlebar, as the other end of the handlebar hit the ground. My jaw's a little sore, but I can still talk, so all is well! We could see about a half mile ahead that there was much road construction going on and it didn't look like we were going to be able to get thru. At this point a road came up and after consulting with the gps, we decided it would take us to the road we eventually needed from our previously planned route. But first, we would have to tackle the biggest hill I ever seen! grrrr But at least the road is paved . . .
Did I mention it was hot out, no shade, and we were running out of water? AND only about 35 miles of our 60 behind us?
A few miles down this road we came upon a farmhouse. The first one of the day that we could access and only about the 5th one we've seen. 100 feet further is the turn we need to make to pick up our other route. We stopped at this house and asked for water. She let us use her hose and it came from a spring. It was the most refreshing water ever! We asked her about the next road we were looking for and she dropped the bomb on us . . . that road is closed. The bridge is completely out and there's no way around it. Oh great. Now what? She gave us directions across an access road so we didn't have to turn back. She was going to give us directions through a field that would be shorter, but mentioned that the owner of said field has been shooting dogs recently and thought it best we didn't go that way. Yes, I didn't want to go through dog alley either! We rested in the shade of her barn for about half an hour. We traveled over a very bumpy, dry, hot prairie for 4 1/2 miles. All I wanted was to get to a real road and it was looking dimmer by the minute. It was so incredibly hot and completely desolate. I thought my arms were frying off my body. FINALLY, we made it to the actual road, but now what do we do? We saw a grove of trees about a mile and a half away, so we decided to head for that and call David to rescue us. We had been out riding for 8 hours and the afternoon heat was unbearable. As we sat under the shade of the trees waiting for David, the owner of the farm happened by . . . we thanked him profusely for letting us use his shade!! He was very nice and he talked with us for a while. He thought it was pretty hot out for us to be biking. At that point, 2:30pm it was 93. We got in 46 miles.
For tomorrow, we've made a plan to stay on real roads, not caring about staying near the JWP Trail. We have a route that is a straight shot, 45 miles. Pending any giant hills, we should bust this out quickly. Now that I've said that, I wonder what will happen?!