4-14-08 Dangerous Beauty

Today I woke up and immediately wanted to fall right back to sleep. Again I failed to go to bed early and as a result I am now running off of pure adrenaline. My first ride really sucked. Not only did we have a head wind but the temperature kept on rising! Ugh! Also, poor Sydney was supposed to be picked up at 10 miles, but the truck was busy picking up some of the other riders and as a result, Deanna, Sydney, and I chugged along until our 20 miles were up. Being in the car was a huge relief! The air conditioning felt wonderful on my hot skin, and the shade from the sun was a blessing. Even though I was glad to be done riding, I couldn’t help but miss the beauty of it all. People say the desert is an ominous place of death, but in reality there is life thriving everywhere! When I was riding, there were pretty cacti flowers in bloom. On occasion I would see a lizard or hear a rustle in a bush, and to me that signified life! Yeah that heat was bad and the wind was dreadful, but I don’t regret riding at all. Our next stop was, Badwater. Did you know that Badwater is the lowest natural surface in the United States, more than 200 feet below sea level.  I couldn’t believe it until I saw a sign on the cliffs that showed the sea level. It was amazing. I stood in awe as I looked at how far above the ground the sign was! When I got out of the car, the first thing that hit me was the wind. Holy moley, it was super windy! I was almost blown over it was so gusty. As I looked around all I could see was a road of white. As we headed down to the path, heat just radiated from the ground. The heat was just stifling! Apparently its 114 degrees. Anyway, it was really cool because Badwater was basically a dried up lake that had so much salt deposit in it, people’s animals couldn’t drink the water, so they named the lake Badwater. Before we left I got picked to be on a bike. Honestly I didn’t want to ride at all. The temperature outside was 114 degrees! I’m not even kidding! I was really worried that I would get heat stroke, but I wasn’t about to complain to Thomsen since he rode for over three hours in this stuff, and he's old, so I figured I would be ok.  Besides, the support vehicles were right behind me. To my surprise the ride was actually really easy. I had a tailwind, which helped a tremendous amount and at one point a huge cloud covered the sun, which lowered the temperature a whopping 2 degrees. Anyway my ride was over sooner than I would have liked, but I was glad to get more water from the cars. We drove for a while and it was really scary because when we caught up with Deanna, she was about ready to throw up and poor Jacob got blown over by the wind. I was really not looking forward to riding if I had to. Well karma caught up with me, because we started to pull over and when everyone was getting their bikes put away, Thomsen asked me if I wanted another shift, and of course I said yes.   It was torture trying to get up that hill.  At one point all these negative thoughts started popping into my head. It was really frustrating because I felt like crying and my legs were tired and I was just exhausted. So, I got off my bike and walked up the hill. It was the most disappointing feeling in the world when I got off my bike. At the end Thomsen walked up to me, patted me on the head, and said good job kid.  I almost started crying right there. Jennifer took my place and made it all the way up the bloody hill. Tim took over halfway down and now we are all packed into the cars.  We are on our way to Ridgecrest and hopefully, wherever we stay will have a shower.  All in all its been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding days of my life.  And Im glad its over  Well, ta ta for now!