Day 22 was one of the longest days. My group was moving slow and we felt like the day was never going to end. We became slower and slower with each mile we pedaled, but we were determined to make the most of our day. There were so many reasons to have a bad day (ex. broken bikes, hard hills, tired legs), but instead we chose to focus on the positives! Here are some awesome things that happened today despite the bad:
We made a lunch stop in the little Victorian town of Ferndale, California. It was the best place!!! We took our time as we walked our bikes down the main street lined with local shops and restaurants. We stopped in a local coffee shop and met Elina, a fellow cyclist. She’s biking from Eureka to San Francisco all by herself (she is the coolest). We sat and chatted for a bit as we exchanged stories of our trips and what we love (and hate) about being on our bikes all day.
After strolling through Ferndale we were cruising through the beautiful countryside and took a second enjoy the scenery and pet some dogs that came our way.
After many more miles, we finally reached the redwoods! They are absolutely beautiful and shielded is from the heat we had been biking in all day. We laughed at how unbelievably beautiful they were and freaked out over the fact that some scenes from Star Wars were filmed here.
We stopped by a little gift shop and chatted with some other cycling friends we had made earlier in the week. It was a nice break from pedaling and we rested our legs to finish out the home stretch for the day.
We got to the campsite and were welcomed with an amazing home-cooked dinner from the Berry family. We met them at a campsite the week before and they immediately adopted us into their family. They made us a delicious meal of veggies and chicken and tofu and grilled pineapple and we ate it all so quickly. We love them so much and are so thankful for them!
Although today felt like it was never going to end, I kept reminding myself that no matter how much I want to stop biking, I won’t. There have been so many instances where I want to take the easy way out but that’s not the point. Whenever I feel discouraged I have to remind myself to just pick up and go. Whenever I face a downhill that looks SO intimidating, I just turn on some pump up music and start pedaling. This trip is not easy in any way but we’ve got to just keep trekking because our mission is so important! We have to constantly focus on the positives of this trip - especially how we get to use our bikes to start a conversation about sex trafficking and make a statement. There’s nothing better!
-Keaton
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