The thing is, I’m still smiling.  And it’s so big that you can see my teeth.

Here’s the story.  Today is the first official day of our Transamerica bike ride. We had planned a leisurely 30 mile ride from Florence to Triangle Lake, on a nice summer day, through a cool forest with no hills.  We’re just getting started, so we want to take it easy right?

Well, have you ever had one of those days when reality gives you a good wake-up call?  Today was one of those days.

44 degrees Farenheit.  That’s what the temperature meter outside Safeway said.  And it was raining.  Not pounding rain, but it wasn’t a drizzle anymore.  We had gotten up at 7:30am in order to get to the ocean and back before check out time.  You can’t really start a coast-to-coast trip from not-the-coast.  But of course, the ocean was eight miles away, not the advertised two.

Jump to the present:

67 miles later - our planned campsite was closed, so we kept going.

1,022 feet of unexpected hill - ow, it was supposed to happen tomorrow.

12 hours since we started.

And it’s still cold and drizzly.

The thing is, I’m still smiling.  And it’s so big that you can see my teeth.  Today was challenging, and actually, that makes me happy.  It made it doubly clear why we’re taking this trip; even though there will be hard days, there is no doubt in our minds that we want do it.

Gaby is such a trooper, she did every one of the 67 miles with me, with four panniers on her bike, even while learning to use pedal clips for the first tme.  And Oregon is beautiful.  From the surfing beach, to the hugh sand dunes, to the picturesque towns, to the meandering river, to the lush forest, to the farmland, to the hills.

And a chocolate bar never tasted so good, and a tent never felt quite so cozy.