We had such a wonderful nights sleep last night since we were inside and had a comfy cushion to sleep on. I woke up to the smell of homemade rhubarb muffins baking in the oven. What an amazing breakfast we had. Along with the warm homemade muffins we had cereal and milk, fresh strawberries, yogurt, tea/hot chocolate, and homemade mixed berry scones. I had 2 muffins and ate at least 3 or 4 scones. It sure was a fantastic way to start the day. We threw in a load of laundry and were so happy that we were going to have clean clothes again! For the rest of the morning, we relaxed with the family. Joey and Michael spent some time jumping on the trampoline while Little Michael and I got to make homemade chocolate chip and toffee cookies (Marty suggested the idea so we would have some treats for the road!). It was so much fun and I was so happy to get to bake some tasty treats. We doubled the recipe, and it was a good thing we did because by the time the first half of the cookies were done, they were all gone. Even still, we had quite a bit that we could take with us from the second half. Afterwards, Little Michael and I joined the boys outside in a made up game involving them jumping on the trampoline and the rest of us trying to throw in big exercise balls and have them hit the bottom of the trampoline while "the bouncers" tried to knock them back out of the net. At one point Stefan came out with a bowl to pick some lettuce from the garden to make a salad. We enjoyed a nice salad for lunch and got packed up ready to go. Papa Mike headed out earlier than the rest of us by about an hour or more to get a start on the big hill going out of town. Fritz, Cynthia, Stefan and Tristan were also packing since they had to head back to Whitehorse today so that they could catch their flight back to Vancouver tomorrow. Marty offered to take some of our stuff in the truck so we could ride the hill unloaded. Papa Mike took her up on the offer and unloaded his paniers. The original plan was for her to drop it off at the top, but since we had food, someone would have had to be there with it. So, since they were worried about Michael breaking his bike more, they threw his bike and trailer in the trailer on the truck (he was going to ride up in the truck). Once we were all ready, we bid our fare wells to everyone, even though we would most likely see Marty and Michael again at the top of the hill. It was a perfect day for cycling again. It was nice and sunny and warm (which since we didn't leave until about 2pm, we were riding in the heat of the day). We had a slight head wind for the first few miles, but then, just in time for us to start climbing, we got a pretty helpful tailwind. We could feel it pushing us up the hills and were so glad for it. The sun was warm enough that I actually worked up a pretty good sweat while climbing (usually I don't sweat very much). The hill itself wasn't as bad as I was anticipating it to be. After we had been riding for about an hour, Marty, Michael and Little Michael passed us in the truck on the way to the top. A little while later, we caught up to and passed Papa Mike on the hill. He didn't mention it to Joey, but when I went by he said that there was a milkshake waiting for me at the top! I couldn't believe it and right after hearing that I got so excited. I started climbing a lot faster since I had such great motivation. I even caught up to and beat Joey to the top of Bear Creek Pass! He was impressed, but I told him it was because I had a lot of motivation, but wouldn't tell him what it was because I wanted it to be a surprise for him. When I pulled into the pull off where they were waiting, Marty opened the truck and sure enough, there was a wonderful milkshake waiting for me! I couldn't have been happier. I had a strawberry milkshake (that might have had some cherries in it too!) and Joey had chocolate. The Ritchie's have just been so kind to us and have surprised us with so many wonderful things: from the beer to the blueberries, and now a delicious milkshake. They truly are angels to us cyclists! I was so sad to have to leave them because they made us feel like we were part f the family- I would have stayed for a week if I could have because we just had so much fun. But when the time came, we said our goodbyes and headed off down the hill. The views were again just so spectacular. At the bottom of the huge hill we crossed Jarvis River. Michael went into a pull off by the river to check it out and ended up meeting a really nice lady named Yvonne there, along with a guy named Darwin. He talked with them for a while before catching back up to us. Michael told us about how she had lived in Boulder, CO for a long time before moving up here and that she loved the mountains and was still hiking up them at age 70 (she is 76 now). Michael also mentioned to her about how Joey and I had ridden though there too. Marty and Little Michael had told us about a good place to camp. We looked for the road to turn on (it was part of the old Alaskan Highway), but weren't 100% sure we were at the right place (we looked in several of the places we thought it might be). We found one spot that we were sure was the right place. Joey rode back in a ways, but turned around because everything started to get really muddy. While we were waiting there, we met a guy from Australia who was riding with his wife (who was feeling sick and hitched a ride for a while), another girl from Australia, and a girl from Portland Oregon. They were riding from Anchorage down to Los Angeles, CA. We chatted with them for a little bit before continuing our quest for the place to camp. We rode for a while longer, but didn't find what we were looking for. A ways down the road, we saw a place next to a lake that we thought would work, but decided to keep going for a little bit. We saw Yvonne and Darwin again, but this time he was fishing in the lake. He caught 2 fish in the time we were standing there talking to them. He ended up giving us 2 fish to cook for dinner! Yvonne also gave me an egg salad sand which on sourdough bread. They were so nice to us. I asked if she, or Darwin, had the internet. She told me that she just got a laptop and that Darwin was teaching her how to use it. I gave her both our webiste and Papa Mikes website because she seemed so interested in our trip and was so nice to us. I explained how she could follow our trips if she was interested and she was just so happy. She gave me a big old hug and I could tell she was glad she had a way to see how our trips turned out. Since we now had 2 fish (Pike) to cook for dinner, we decided to go back down the road the short distance to the place by the lake we thought about camping at. It turned out to be a perfect spot. There were already a couple fire pits there and it was a nice open area that was hidden from the road. While Joey got firewood, Michael walked back over to where Darwin was fishing to see if he could catch anything. Sure enough about 15 minutes later, their car pulls into our camp spot; they had brought Michael back along with the fish that he caught (another Pike)! We were all pretty excited that we would get to have some fish for dinner. It was also nice that we got to see Yvonne and Darwin again. Papa Mike got everything he needed to clean the fish and went way off into the woods away from our camp to clean them. I named the Fish Fred, Arnold, and Joey named one Johnny, just for fun. Once Papa Mike got the fish all cooked up in the butter and salt and pepper that we had we got to enjoy. And boy, Fred, Arnold and Johnny sure were tasty! What a great treat. We didn't expect that we were going to get to enjoy fish for dinner, especially since the Michaels have been trying to fish but have not had any success. After we enjoyed a few marshmallows over the fire and some of the super tasty chocolate chip cookies. What a fantastic day, AGAIN! I was expecting this portion of the trip to be just super hard because I thought we would hardly see any people, but it has been almost the complete opposite. Everyone we meet up here has just been so wonderful. Michael and Joey decided to put the food inside a big metal box that was attached to some kind of road work machine that was sitting next to the pull off driveway where we set up camp. It worked out pretty good because the trees have gotten so short and are mostly all pines, which make it difficult to find a suitable place to hang the food. The one thing that seems to be good about the trees is that since we have bee getting further into the Yukon, the bugs have been getting better and better. We haven't had to wear our bugnets in almost 5 days now! Even after a fun morning and early afternoon with the Ritchie's, we were still able to make a little headway down the road. We rode 26.14 miles today.
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