This morning’s ride was trying. I woke up sore and restless and managed to crawl back onto the bike, reminding myself that cancer patients face no such choice. Caliente is situated in a bowl, so to get out of the city, we had to climb our ways out over the mountain ranges surrounding us. About six miles into our climb, we saw lightning ahead and thunder shortly following. We quickly pulled off to the side as soon as we could to wait the storm out. Being at such high altitudes during these conditions can be especially dangerous. When the storm finally faded, we cycled on. The ride through to Rachel, at least at the beginning, was absolutely beautiful with blue skies all around us—beautiful. About forty miles in, my legs were definitely sore, and I don’t think I was drinking enough water as I was pretty exhausted. Nevertheless, we are short on food supplies (Nevada is not nearly as populated as some other places we’ve visited) so we have to ration what good we have from the rest stops. Coming out of our 2nd rest stop at the 40, Lance and I decided to pick up the pace as the sun was coming out. Bad idea. We climbed the longest climb we’ve climbed to date (12 miles) not going over 10 miles an hour b/c of the incline and wind. Long story short, we were exhausted for the next 40 miles, but we knew we had to push on. I think this was just the case for us though—many of our other teammates seemed to really enjoy the ride. When we arrived in Rachel (known for Aliens and Area 51), we moved into the Little A’Le’Inn. After dinner, some of us headed to check out Area 51 to see just how close we could get—there wasn’t much to see, but we were still nervous heading in that direction. Tomorrow I’ll be sagging with Rich and Mike for our 109 mile day—a welcomed break, but I’m slightly bittersweet about not being able to ride with my teammates. We’ll see how things go. Until then!

Zaid facing the storm head on:

Jenna riding solo through the desert:

ET highway took us to Nevada:

Spent the night at the "Little A Le Inn"