Today was a great day. We woke up this morning to a delicious breakfast of ham, eggs, toast, bagels, and cereal (thank you Presbyterian Church of Manteca). We were also joined by some of the folks we met last night at our program in Lathrop (Penny, Chip, Benny, to name a few). They day started with some big stretches of flat ground, but somewhere near the 25 mile marker, we hit some headwinds and climbs HARD. I’ll confess that I made it through largely owed to thinking on Dave’s strong grandma, Angie, and the pink bracelet reading “HOPE” which Angie wore while battling cancer, passed to Dave, who then passed to me. I just could not get off my bike… as much as my body screamed for me to. I had to do it, for Angie, for Dave, for Lathrop. Eventualy we made it to the BART station with an hour to spare, and we headed in to San Francisco—amazing city. Our team will be staying with Carlos (owner of Freewheel bikes in SF and awesome and kindhearted individual in general). We had a delicious vegetarian dinner with Renee and Paul (active athletes in the SF area) and they had the most amazing view of SF from their flat. Tonight I will be staying with my sister and mom, who came to town just to visit me! It was so exciting to see them both, and I’m so glad that they could’ve made it out. I’ve missed them sincerely. I’m excited to be spending all day tomorrow with them.

Big Dan meeting up with us

The kind folks of Lathrop

The big climb to come!

In the meantime... Forget me not!