For some reason, I woke up with a sore back and not feeling all that great. We woke up nice and early, had our oatmeal and got everything put away by a reasonable time. Just as we were getting ready to leave though, we noticed that my back tire was flat. We didn't even get any miles in yet and we had to fix it- but the good news is that we had the picnic table to use which made it nicer. From the church where we camped to the main portion of town we had about 2-3 miles to ride. We stopped at Subway to fill up on water and then as a last minute decision on the way out of town stopped at McDonald's to check our email. It turns out that we had an email from the Warm Shower's host that Joey had contacted a few days ago. They were available to host us, so we planned to make it there tonight. They were about 65 miles away from where we were in Ramona, so we figured it was doable. As we started heading out of town, we realized it was going to be another long day. We were going up again, but the worst part is that the wind was so strong, and it was right against us. It made us think of how it was back in Iowa and South Dakota. It took forever to get anywhere, and we just felt like we were crawling. So much for West- East being the easy direction to go. As we fought the wind, we both became more and more frustrated- we were again fighting a losing battle. The wind is definitely one thing that can defeat almost any cyclist. We climbed and climbed, and watched as we passed the elevation signs that appeared with every 1,000 feet of elevation gained. Eventually we made it as high as 4,000 feet in elevation. So, after just a day and a half of riding we went from sea level in San Diego to over 4,000 feet. It feels like all we did since we left is climb. There were a couple downhills of course, but the uphills obviously outnumbered those by a lot. After what seemed like forever, we made it to the first town, Santa Ysabel, which was only 19 miles away from where we started this morning. It took us over 3 hours to get there because of that darn wind, so we decided that we would take our lunch break there. It wasn't quite as bad as when we were in South Dakota, but it was pretty close. There was a nice little porch on the building connected to the post office that was out of the wind enough that we would be able to enjoy our lunch. Yesterday we bought all the stuff to make our "Loic" sub sandwiches, but like last nights dinner, we only had quarter sized sandwiches instead of the full half of sandwiches we used to have it. Amazingly, when we turned onto our new road, the wind was in our favor for a little while. What a wonderful change that was! It was flat for a little bit before we started our gradual climbing again. For most of the rest of the time on rt 79 there wasn't much climbing and there were actually a couple of sections that were really great gradual downhills. Once we turned onto California 371 we started to climb right away. Just as with all of the other hills we had gone up lately we had a few miles to go before we reached the top. By this time in the day we were both so exhausted from battling the wind this morning that the climbing was pretty tough. Our hosts for tonight said to give them a call when we got to that intersection, so that is what we did. Right away he offered to come pick us up because the 371 was not a very safe road to ride on because of the amount of traffic. We still had a little bit of daylight left and we knew he was only about 12 miles away, so we planned to just keep riding. He was right though. The road had no shoulder and as it got closer and closer to being dark, rush hour set in and the amount of traffic increased quite a bit. The cars were all just flying by without giving us a whole lot of room because they were all in a hurry to get home after a long day at work. It is amazing to me that people drive the distances they do to get to work. Later on this evening, our host told us that people will drive upwards of 70 miles one way to get to work. That is just insane! As we continued on battling the traffic, it got to be close to dark. As a result of it being pretty scary to ride on that road and our complete exhaustion, we decided to just give in and call William and Marcie back to see if the offer for the ride still stood. So, about 15 minutes later, we saw William in his truck pass us and flash his lights. While we were waiting for him to turn around, we found a pull off/driveway that he would be able to pull into to pick us up. He helped us load our bikes in the back of his pickup and we were off. By that time it was pitch black. We were happy to be in the truck and away from all of the crazy drivers. From the point where he picked us up, we had about 10 miles to go to get to their house. The last quarter of a mile was up a pretty steep dirt road, so we were happy we didn't have to ride/push our bikes up there after a long day. After we got our bikes unloaded we got to meet Marcie and even found out we would get to sleep in a bed tonight!! We took turns taking a nice hot shower and then were treated to a wonderful dinner of chicken, baked potato and veggies with pasta. What a great dinner! It reminded me of home a little because that is the kind of meal I would get to have at Grandpa's house- he is a very meat and potato kind of guy. At this point, there is so much left to explore and probably about 5,000-6,000 miles left to do, yet we almost feel like the trip is already winding down just because it has gone so fast already. We are so happy to be on the trip and I for one don't want it to end, but there are still a lot of things to look forward to for when we get back home. I am not ready to go home yet, but I think when we get really close to home I will be. For the rest of the evening we enjoyed some great conversation with our hosts. They shared a lot of great trip stories and we just had a blast. We were both so exhausted that we went to bed kind of early. I was physically exhausted, but not quite ready to sleep yet. So, I worked on making a little wire bicycle. That is my new favorite thing to do- and I will say, they are slowly getting better the more I make them. It was so wonderful to be able to just relax in a bed with the night table light on like that- I am glad that I took the time to just enjoy that instead of going to sleep right away. Today was one of the toughest days we've had in a long time. Although portions of the afternoon's ride weren't super hard, we were so tired that it was a lot of work. I am so glad that we made it here and got to meet William and Marcie. Hopefully the wind will be better tomorrow. We rode 57.61 miles today and rode about ten miles on top of that in the truck. I definitely don't regret taking the ride- sometimes it's just not worth it to push yourself to keep riding in situations like that.
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