4-09-08 Biking in the Snow with Alice

I woke up at 7:00am and Arielle and Ally were already awake.  I got up and got all my riding gear ready and all my stuff packed and went to breakfast.  After breakfast, I went back to my room and brought my stuff out next to the Penske.  Ally was riding first, then Tim, and then me and my dad.  Tim caught up to us because I had to call my school which slowed us down.  I told my school I was in middle of the desert in Tucumcari, New Mexico surrounded by cows and it was freaking cold.  They asked me questions, like what was my favorite place.  I said Alexandra, Virginia. After the phone call with my school, I started riding again.  During the ride, my dad asked me why I was going so slow.  I said I was pedaling as hard as I can, but I am just not going a lot faster.  Then my dad looked at my seat and said it was too low.  He fixed my seat.  I rode for about an hour and 30 minutes.  I went 21 miles. We drove to a restaurant called Harry’s Road House.  I got to see my mom who arrived from Seattle.  We had lunch and we met the Mayor and other people who were interested in our ride.  We heard about some kids from Santa Fe that were either kicked out or dropped out of school who cleaned up Santa Fe for $9 per hour.   They did things like pick up trash and unclog streams.  We biked from Harry’s to a creek in Santa Fe to meet the kids.  A bunch of people joined us on the bike ride.  There was this lady, named Alice, who was 86 years old.  I was surprised to see her biking.  She had oxygen tubes while biking!  We had police escorts again.  It felt good to not have to stop at every light.  It started to snow on us while we were riding and I could not feel my right pinky.  The city arranged to get us some free hotel rooms.  It was very sweet of them.  Now I am going to sit next to a heater.