4-15-08 Muffins make the world go round

The Road Way Inn was an ok hotel, but our breakfast made it a great morning. We went to the Carriage Inn for a wonderful breakfast thanks to Ally’s uncle Steve.  The food was so tasty.  I had two pieces of toast, oatmeal, grapes, and a cranberry cup cake.  I wish they had muffins, because they're really good and they make the world go round. It felt so good to be full in the morning, much better than our other days of cereal and energy bars. I barely got to ride today because I almost got sick riding up a hill yesterday and Thomsen said I had to take it easy.  I rode with Ally, Sydney, Jennifer and Deana.  They had to do a forty-mile ride, split whatever way they wanted to.  We only had Jacob’s bike, which is too small for me to ride efficiently, so I was the recorder of when they left, the mileage and temperature.  This kept me busy, because they were switching off every 20 to 30 minutes. They were switching because of the wind that followed us from Death Valley and they had some long up hills.   While they were riding Thomsen was ahead of us riding an 8 mile pass that gained over 6,000 feet with 11% grades.  It took him over an hour to do it and there were really bad winds.  At the top there was still snow so he wanted his picture taken next to the sign warning of the hill.  I asked him if I could ride down the other side but he said no because it was windy and the road was very winding. When we got to the bottom the girls started riding, except for Ally, she got carsick from driving down the pass.  I thought she was going to throw up but she didn't. After they finished their leg of the ride, Tyrone and I got to ride on boring roads compared to what the girls got.  The girls had back roads that were epic.  There was rolling hills that were just great.  Tyrone and I got to bike busy roads and suburban streets.  One interesting thing I saw was a bee farm.  It would have been cool if I could go by it early and see how many bees there were. We also passed rows and rows of grapefruit and oranges or tangerines; I could not tell the difference.  We should have asked the farmer if he would donate any fruit for our trip. We rode our whole leg today which is good, except I didn’t get to ride as much as I wanted to.  Thomsen said I could ride more tomorrow depending on how I feel.  The hotel we are staying at in Visalia is really big and very nice.  I think its one of the nicer ones we've been in.  It looks really new but in the parking lot it smells like cows.  I guess I'll see tomorrow.