This morning started out a little rough. Yesterday was a lot of uphill and my quads felt it. Luckily I was driving the first half of today so I put off thinking about biking.
Breakfast was oatmeal, and thank you to Devin for his granola recommendation (turns out they sell granola that’s just crushed granola bar bits). After we packed the car, everyone set out.
I had some time to kill before I met everyone for lunch so I decided to go for a run around the campsite while I waited. I forgot that the campground has a killer downhill coming in from the north. That hill is also a killer leaving the campground but not in a nice way. Turns out that hills are also hard to run so I still slightly died that morning. I caught up with the team at the campground entrance. Then they set off on probably the longest stretch of downhill we’ve had so far. It was about 6 miles of just continuous downhill. My heart broke a little driving down it.
However the route quickly changed until it was mostly a steep uphill climb. I met up with some of the team at a overlook and we took some nice pictures to commemorate their efforts.
Then I met up with Caralyn and Devin at the lunch location- a nice overlook called Stony Man Overlook. If you stand in the right spot you could see one side of the mountain looked like an old man facing the sky. The valley was absolutely beautiful and the weather was sunny but not too hot so it was perfect for biking.
After lunch, Caralyn and I switched so she waited for the rest of the team while Devin and I headed out to complete the next thirteen miles to get to Big Meadows Campground. The first two miles were probably the worst two miles of this trip so far for me. They were uphill (of course) and my quads decided at that moment to let me know how sore they were.
After I warmed up though it wasn’t so bad. It was still uphill and then we reached the highest point on skyline drive. Felt like I was cheating because I didn’t bike the first half of the day but Devin and I still took a picture in front of the sign.
We also found a nice overlook to take some epic looking photos. (Bet you can tell who is better at taking pictures *cough cough*)
After the rest of the team arrived, Caralyn cut Edgardo’s hair and Devin, Maile, Erin, Bill, and I decided to do a small hike to Stony Man Summit.
Erin drove us to the site, and the rest of us headed up the trail. It was a nice trail, but since I didn’t want to get injured I mostly focused on where I was putting my feet. We reached the summit and the view of the mountains and the valley was incredible.
However, we saw a huge rainstorm coming in, so we quickly scurried back down to Erin. We arrived back in the car just before the rain. Back at the campsite, Caralyn and Edgardo made the most amazing chicken tacos complete with rice and pico de gallo. I didn’t know such good food could be made on a tiny campsite stove under a camouflage tarp in the rain.
Since it was Maile’s birthday, we decided to make s’mores over the camp stove (a fire wasn’t working out in the rain). My recommendation to add peanut butter to the classic s’mores combo went over very well, and Edgardo had his very first s’more! (The consensus: really sugary but good).
After cleaning up some, Bill and I offered to do laundry. We grabbed the bags of dirty clothes and headed over to the campground laundry station. While doing laundry we met Briana who we chatted with for a while. She is a professor of music from Illinois and had finished up her PhD a little while ago so to celebrate she was finishing up her bucket list of things to do in every state. She does triathlons, so she gave us some suggestions on how to stay healthy when pushing ourselves and told us a wild story about how she fell on her hip but still managed to bike 40 something miles and then run 20 miles the next day.
After laundry Bill and I headed back to the campsite. Everyone was already asleep, so we basically threw everything in the car and crashed.
The next morning, Briana drove around the campground (which is huge) until she saw a site with a lot of bikes. She stopped and gave a card to Bill. Inside was an encouraging note and gift! She recommended a pizza place in Marion, IL (which we will be passing through), so we will definitely be stopping in Walt’s Pizza sometime in the future.
It really is incredible how nice the people we meet are. I’m looking forward to meeting even more amazing people.
-Leah Yost