Day 13 – June 25, 2015

Day 13 – June 25, 2015
Pierce RV to Walla Walla – 28 miles

Bumble Bee – Audrey

This is a significant day since we are trying to see if our “beat the heat” plan works. Alarms go off at 4:45am. Not only is is light already, but cold outside. Perfect since this means we could leave even earlier, say 5am.

We had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, filled our water bottles, took down a slightly dew moistened tent, and we were off at about 6:29. Good bye Pierce RV, one of many hill billy campsites we have ahead of us.

These short days are deceiving since you think that your destination is just a little ways up the road. We’ve done 50+ days. No problem, we will be there in no time. Well, that psychological false sense of “easy day” is dangerous. For me it seems that these shorter days just never seem to end. Looking down at my bike computer I see that we have only gone 15 miles though it seems like 30. Where is Walla Walla? Isn’t it just down the road? Just keep peddling.

Just out of camp we did a good little climb of about 1-2 miles up. Good thing to do before it got hot. About 10 miles in we stopped at a gas station where we each got a BBQ “mystery meet” burrito. Wasn’t like any burrito I have ever had since it was deep fried. As Gregg said that the funny thing about a tour like this is that you eat things you would normally never eat.

Just before Walla Walla at about 9am – the heat hit with force. It hit me hard. I had to keep drinking my electrolyte infused water every mile or so. The bottoms of my feet were burning. Gregg said my shoes are laced too tight. Only a couple miles left. It was a hard hot road. Got to town finally and I checked my trusty Yelp App for a good breakfast place, Maple Counter Cafe, almost 5 stars – another 2 miles down the road. Oh no, can I make it? We weaved through the city where half of the roads we being repaved, lovely when its 95 degrees?

Had a great breakfast with liter of fresh grapefruit/orange juice. Pixie, the nice waitress, told us where the health food stores and bike shops were. She likes touring bicyclists so much that she offers them her backyard as a camping site on a regular basis. She loves meeting new wandering gypsy like characters. She even said that she could envision herself being 55 years old and being a “trail angel” for hikers on the AP or the PCT. I guess she read the book or something. She offered to drive us places if we needed a ride somewhere, gave us her phone number. Wow, I just experienced my first bit of “trail magic” what I learned about last year covering the PCT for ARD. When you are traveling, like we are on bikes, or hiking the long trails like the PCT or the AP, people randomly offer you help. It just happens, like magic.
I feel officially part of an unique group of travelers that do these crazy journeys. I have arrived.

A short stop at Allegro bike shop to add another water bottle holder to my bike, and the health food store for some magnesium/calcium pills for sore muscles, and we arrived at our hotel, totally exhausted. Gregg suggested that we at least made it this far, but will have to adjust our schedule to accommodate the sudden heat wave. We each could barely take a shower before collapsing on the bed for a well deserved 2 hr nap. At least we have a “0 day” to make new plans and take care of our swollen knees and sore backs.