The Adventures of Day 1 &2

Well...here we are and it's the end of day 4.  I'm not going to write about all four days right now because they were too crazy to mention in one post and I don't want to make this too long.  SO, this post will be about Days 1&2: days that at the time seemed relatively rough, but compared to today and yesterday...they were a dream. Let's start with Day 1.

Mom wasn't going to let me go all the way to Las Vegas and not see some of the sights.  We spent Thursday morning seeing the strip, doing some shopping and of course, getting some gelato because, as I learned during my trip to Europe,  it is necessary to eat when doing any sort of sightseeing.

Those tourists love to gamble.  I'd rather just walk around and take pictures of myself.

The Bellagio!

I never took a diva pose picture in Paris, so I thought this was necessary.

Caroline, this picture was taken especially for you!  Missing our times in Europe!

It was a bit difficult to enjoy the sights because I was already nervous about the cycling Dad and I would be doing that day.  Needless to say, once we got back to the hotel, we headed to the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign which was our starting point for the bike tour.  Of course, Mom had to get some pictures.  You can tell by my face in these photos that I’m not as confident as Dad...

We actually made it through the city relatively quickly.  We had a nice tail wind and cars were pretty good about sharing the road.  We only got a few angry honks, so that was good.  Once we got out of the city, we were doing a lot of uphill climbing and it was VERY VERY hot.  My lips were so chapped by the wind, I thought they were going to fall off.  Imagine this: Someone just put white glue on my lips, I’m rubbing them together and then trying desperately to separate them (I know, I look really attractive in your mind right now.  DBJ).  Anyway, it was killer.  My lips were so chapped and it was so hot outside.  Plus, there is no place to sit and have a drink because there aren’t any trees where you can find shade!  So, we rode until we found an overpass where we could take a break.  This picture shows my emotion after doing 30 km.

Dad just loves taking photos when I'm really not in the mood.

 

NOT a great start.  It got better though-we had  tail wind and we started to pick up speed.  The road was beautiful and I was feeling good.  Then, we got to a giant hill with rumble strips on the shoulder and very little room to ride the bike.   It was very difficult to maintain a straight line with the bumps in the road, the massive amounts of traffic, and the wind.  So, I eventually overcorrected and ended up falling on the side of the road.   Thankfully, I did not overcorrect ONTO the road because that would’ve been worse.  Instead, I fell in a bunch of shale (which for the record, hurts a lot more than grass) and classic Dad just came over saying “You’re fine, you’re fine.  Just dust it off, YUP, here we go.  You’re fine.”  

And so we kept on riding for another hour.  It was very frustrating because I still couldn’t manage to stay within the rumble strip and the side of the road without falling off for more than 1km.  Then, Mom showed up in the support van.  PRAISES.  When she had a look at my wounds for the first time, I wasn’t in a very good state of mind (see pictures).

How do I not have a boyfriend when I am THIS attractive?

But then I decided to suck it up and embrace my wounds as badges of honour.  

The rest of the day went really well.  We biked a total of 95 kms which wasn’t bad considering we didn’t get started until 2:00 in the afternoon.  The scenery was also beautiful.  I was expecting Nevada to be quite unappealing, but the mountains and desert together are actually quite majestic!  The icing on the cake was the sun setting as we finished our last few kilometres. 

Mom's favourite thing to do is drive up to us, roll down the window and shout "SMILE!".  This is the result.

 Day 2:

The second day was definitely a mixed bag of emotions.  It didn’t start off too well.  Before lunch Dad had already been knocked off of his bike (kind of my fault), lost his glasses (also kind of my fault) and got a flat tire (not taking the blame for that one).  We had done quite well distance wise, but things just weren’t going very smoothly.  We also didn’t have a place to stay for the night so we were scrambling around trying to get some place that we could get to within an hour of driving.  Apparently, nobody likes to live in Nevada unless you’re in Las Vegas.  This is one of the main reasons we are so grateful to have Mumsie here with the van.  However, after lunch, things turned up (we found Dad’s glasses on the side of the road in a bunch of gravel-PRAISES), and found a place to stay at a truck stop in a tiny town called “Lund”.  I know, it sounds amazing.  Despite the lackluster town we would be sleeping in, we did have a great day of riding.  The wind was behind us and we were flying!  We went a total of 140km which was GREAT.

By the time we got into Lund, everything was closed.  And by “everything”, I mean the one grocery store in town that randomly serves burgers.  We hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, so thankfully we found a convenience store that sold some food items.  I had a stale corn dog which, at the time, was absolutely delicious in my mind.  The motel wasn’t anything grand, but after a day of riding, I would sleep on the ground of an abandoned shack and be satisfied.  Don’t tell my Dad that because some of the motels that he wants to go to nearly fit that description.  Anyway, the first two days were hard, but good.  The butt situation wasn’t too bad, but my body is still adjusting to biking for 8 hours a day.  I’m also still adjusting to sleeping in the same room as my parents who breathe 10x louder than any normal person does when they sleep.  I have invested in ear plugs.  Stay tuned for more adventures from Day 3&4.  WARNING: they were horrible.

Okie dokie! Bye for now!

 A