
We faced the 90 mile 9000′ gain day with all we had, both physically and mentally and conquered it! Interestingly, when we opened Bill & Sooz’s inspirational message the next day we found we had already applied the message of “gratitude” throughout our most challenging day.
Even after all this time,
The Sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me”.
Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.
—Hafez
During the week there was an abundance of road kill of every kind including the usual suspects: deer, skunks, raccoons, and expanding to include a wide variety of snakes, a porcupine, a fox, and an antelope. As the week progressed we saw less of both living and dead animals. Even the birds seem to be few and far between. Not to say there aren’t any. We’ve seen some raptors, crows and Western Kingbirds. I downloaded a free bird identification app for our Android phone to help a couple of weeks ago when there were a lot more birds including Kingfishers and Osprey.
We’re now settled into Hulett, 9.5 miles past Devils Tower enjoying our weekly motel rest-day, doing laundry and catching up on email, blogging and the Tour de France. We’re situated across the street from a tiny grocery store that stocks soy milk! And right on a river with a bench to do our morning meditation. We’re in such a singularly focused daily schedule that we feel pretty isolated from world news and politics. It’s actually rather a nice change of pace. Monday morning we’ll have breakfast here and continue on the route. Those camping at Devils Tower will ride the extra miles Monday morning instead.
The weekend rest-day post gets written either Saturday night or early on Sunday before we’ve had our full day. So I wanted to report that on last Sunday’s rest-day in Jackson we went to a matinee showing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Prior to leaving home at least 4 friends had mentioned it as a must-see. We can now concur. Great cast, well acted, very sweet, romantic and poignant. Plus, it’s relevant to those of us exploring the third act of our lives.
S&S,
Way to power through the mountains! What a tough week of hills and wind but you made it to your rest day. Hope you have a wonderful day of rest and relaxing. We love following along and being able to share in your ride via e-mail. I especially love to hear of your “tandem toying” with the single riders, sounds like great fun. Thanks again for taking the time to keep us up to date!
Phil
Glad you made it through a tough week. You all are very inspirational. Who would ever call a 70 mile ride a rest day. Now I have to get my self out of bed and go for a ride!!! If you can do it I have no excuse. Peace and blessings.
Congratulations on week 3! I’m loving this trip. Marigold is such a fun movie, I’ve eatched it twice so far. The upcoming week looks great!
xo