Day 16: Lewiston,ID to Waitsburg,WA

Miles on the Washington hill country: 79

Weather: The rain held off for us today, but the wind did not. And that made for an absolutely brutal day on the bike. We pretty much got buried by a headwind that made it feel like we were riding in a wind tunnel the entire day. It was like someone was playing a cruel joke on us. Once again, good day to fly a kite, bad day to be riding your bike west. It was brutal.....incredibly hard (possibly one of the hardest of this trip) and both Luke and I are toast right now. Thanks, Washington. Preciate' that. Hunger Ride 2010 will never forget the 36 hours we spent in this state and how you buried us into the ground. :)

Road we were on today: Hwy 12 the whole way. A nice 55/65 mph speedway. Yikes, the cars really do fly out there.

Shoulder condition: It ranged from literally 5 inches of shoulder to 3 feet ... smooth surface to rough and full of debris

Tomorrow's Ride: Waitsburg,WA to Umatilla,OR. (originally a 57 mile day, we'll have to ride 76 to make up for the miles we missed today)

# of times I changed (Luke's) tires today: 5

# of flat tires for Luke: 3 (we found out he had two bad tires, hence the 5 times of changing)

# of flats for the trip: Tom-2 , Luke-3 ....Luke takes a commnanding 3-2 lead on me. This is one game I hope I lose.

Miles ridden today after being on the road for 3hr and 27 minutes: 8

(You gotta love flat tires .... and then running out of Co2 cartridges)

Quote of the day: "It's pretty much a sufferfest out there right now." -Me, commenting to my Dad about the conditions of the ride today during a break. Yeah, I guess I pretty much just quoted myself on that one!

Hey Big Chill, "Flair!"

SUMMARY OF THE DAY.....

We departed from room 216 in the comfy accomodations given to us by the Red Lion Hotel of Lewiston at appr. 9:00am this morning. All was going well for the first .55 miles. That's .55 miles, not 55. That is until Luke ran over who knows what and was blessed with his first flat tire of the trip. He's pretty much been blaming me for his flat since I made a pretty big deal just last night over the fact he hadn't, up until this morning, had a flat tire this entire trip. That's 1200+ miles of riding. Pretty crazy if you think about it. Well, that came to an abrupt end this morning .... and we ended up having more problems than we could handle. Long story short, there were multiple problems with tubes and tires and such, and we rode all of 8 miles (in what was suppose to be a 102 mile day) in 3 hr and 27 minutes. So, once we finally got on the road we felt like we had some catching up to do .... so we really started to hit it hard....riding like we are in the Tour de France of something. The problem for us is that the headwind we faced was absolutely ridiculous and we had 4,000+ feet of climbing ahead of us. We ended up getting blitzed pretty good today. My legs are more sore right now than they've been the whole trip. If you took a metal hammer and started banging on any part of my legs, I probably wouldn't feel anything. I do need to say that Luke was a stud today. There were a few times that I really pushed it hard ... very hard to try and make up some time. And he was right there. He stood in the ring and took the beatdown that the Washington hills and wind gave us today. And he was in pretty good spirits at the end of it all as well. Nice job, Junior.

GLASS HALF FULL ....OR GLASS HALF EMPTY?

We've all heard the expression "do you look at life like a glass half full or a glass half empty?"This old-time expression, of course, has to do with the different perspectives that people choose to have on events that take place in their lives. Well, there was certainly a battle that occurred in me today .... and it all took place between my ears ..... having to do with the various things that took place on Day 16 of HR 2010. It's not always a joy-ride out there, folks. There certainly are moments when I can lose perspective .... and times when I would rather be laying on my couch watching the Cubs. Well, here were the two sides of the coin for me today. Two perspectives. Two conversations that I had with myself ..... the different thoughts that went through me head. I tried to, as best I could, to dwell on the second list rather than the first. And I think that ultimately, in the end, I did. But, it wasn't always easy.

I thought of this day like the glass was half empty when:

1. 3 hours had gone by, we hadn't rode 10 miles and it was time for lunch

2. By 11am, I had put three different tires on one bike

3. After changing out the 4th tire, we had no Co2 cartridges .... and had to call the sag for reinforcements.

4.It was 4:00pm, we hadn't rode 50 miles and the wind was getting worse

5. Did I mention that all afternoon we were getting blasted by a hurricane-like headwind?

6. We never officially ate lunch today. I just kept eating gels packets and Cliff bars

7. By 5:00pm, my legs were absolutely throbbing and it was hard to keep pedaling

I thought of this day like a glass half full when I focused on.....

1. There's not too many people that have the opportunity to ride their bike for this long

2. I'm not the greatest athlete on the planet, but God did give me the ability to sit in the saddle for long periods of time

3. Soooo many people have given their time and resources to make this trip possible ... and we've raised over $16,000 so far!
4. There is hope in a very small town in Uganda right now because of the work that Food for the Hungry is doing .... and Luke and I have the privlege to be a part of it

5. I've got an awesome Dad (Happy Father's Day ol' man!)

6. We've had 4 amazing sag crews ... and we'd have been in a big trouble a few times (today included) without them

7. We rode for over 2400 miles combined with less than 3 flats .... so what happened today is really not that big of deal

8. We had over a dozen different motels give us free nights to stay on this trip ... hot showers are great

9. We've had more sun than rain on this trip, and today would have been absolutely miserable in the rain

10. My wife is able to be with me for the last 9 days of this trip .... and I'm thankful for the post ride massages!

11. Christ lives in me.

Point being, there's always, always, always more things to be thankful for as exemplified in this list.

SHOUT OUTS.....

We have the Marcus Whitman Hotel in Walla Walla,WA to thank for a really sweet second floor motel room. This place is pretty swank if I do say so myself.