Oct 6 Julian, CA

The vineyards continued, but it was a greuling next 40 miles, on each hill ascending hundreds of feet, only to lose that altitude before ascending the next hill, a task made even tougher by our load of 40 lbs or so, most of it water. After the rolling ended, we faced a final climb of 4200 feet up to the town of Julian. By day's end, we had covered only 60 miles, but we were exhausted by the climb, which we couldn't manage at anything faster than 5mph. But we had arrived. Kory and Fatima camdd to Julian to meet us for dinner. Then we all drove together to the campground 18 miles downhill to spend the night. Yes we cheated here! And were happy for such, as it was aleady too dark to manage the steep descent safely. The desert campsite was gloriously quiet, and the stars were beautiful.

I'm writing this sentence a year later, because I didn't want my Mom to worry during the bicycle trip, but I came down with a bad case of the runs and food poisoning during the first three days of the ride! Maybe it was from not having slept the night before (we drove through the night down to Kory's house in Cardiff), or maybe it was from something bad that I ate, but the entire three days, from the base of Julian, to the Arizona border in Blythe, were terribly uncomfortable. I had to stop once or twice an hour to use any bathroom, or to hide behind a tree, shrub, levee, or even a bale of hay and empty my bowels. Jeff understandably became irate at my having to stop so often, but しょうがない we had no choice. He also had to put up with the sulfur burps that accompanied the food poisoning. Poor Jeff, having to share a tent with me when such a horrid stench was coming from both ends! Nonetheless, we pushed on through it all.