Written by: Stephany Escalante Galindo
Today we rode 78 miles from Grand Canyon, Arizona to Flagstaff, Arizona. Wake up time was at 5 a.m. During the night you could hear the rain drops fall on our tent. As we were having breakfast, those of us who hiked asked each other how their legs were, and some said thighs were hurting, others said calves, and others said the soles of their feet were hurting. After breakfast, the tents were put away. Everyone wore their rain gear because it was forecast.
Today was the coldest day of the ride so far. To the first rest stop,
which was 20 miles, we had all head wind. It rained lightly on us as we biked, and it reminded me of when I used to do the backstroke in swimming because when it would rain, all the little droplets would sting when they hit my face, as they did today. We rode by a house in the middle of nowhere that looked like a barn with no other houses surrounding it for miles, but it was technologically advanced because it had a huge solar panel on its property. Because of the rain it made everything muddy and the bottom of our clips (cycling shoes) got full of mud, so we had to find a piece of metal to scrape it off. As we looked out into the wilderness at the trees, you could see the the rain drops falling. A car that was coming toward us flashed his lights in a sign of support.
At one point you can smell the the pine trees that were all around us. Today was the longest, coldest, wettest, most fun riding day. The last 20 miles we got poured on and were drenched from head to toe. A van was taken into town for groceries and they didn’t notice a person was asleep in the very back until they were heading back to the church, and the person woke up and scared them accidentally. We had a nice warm shower at the church we are staying. Our dinner team will be making food tonight. Thankfully, we will be having nice, hot chili to warm up from our cold biking day.
