No more birthday blues!

I think it might be safe to say that the Birthday Curse has been broken!

For those of you who don't know, I haven't had the greatest of luck when it comes to birthdays as of late. 23 - got robbed, first a couple days before, then a couple days after.
24 - lost my job two days before
25 - diagnosed with mono the DAY of my birthday.

Needless to say, I was a little hesitant to see what 26 held in store for me. Fall off a mountainside? Attacked by cougars? Broken bike? Anything was possible.

Instead...it held a whole lot of wonderful :)

We started the day with shivers...55 feels mighty chilly when you've got a day of biking on exposed roads ahead of you! But we tore along a stretch of Oregon's more forgiving flatlands and made really good time. I had decided somewhere along the road that what I wanted for my birthday was...toasted marshmallows. So when we stopped for lunch in Yachats, I grabbed a bag of marshmallows for later that night.

We pulled into camp early (before 3 even!) and had plenty of time to shower, lounge around in the sunlight and just hang out before our stomachs started demanding food. So we built ourselves a good campfire, roasted some sausage, actually heated up some baked beans (rather than just eating them cold out of the can...) and roasted the ENTIRE BAG of marshmallows. It was wonderful! Zac gave me a beautiful pair of earrings and life, as they say...was good.

The day after was a little rougher. We did a solid 42 miles (longest day since Pre-Portland) and it was our 5th day biking...also the most consecutive days on the road. There were some hefty hills and some...not necessarily hefty hills, but lonnnng slow climbs. I haven't quite decided which is harder - the short, steep climbs or the long, gradual inclines. I'm beginning to think the gradual hills are worse! At least with the steep inclines, I can anticipate an end to them! The slow climbs just feel like they take forever. But at least there were some pretty vistas to cheer us on!

But it made getting to camp that much nicer at the end of the day. Though I did encouter 'tour stomach' upon arrival. Zac had warned me about how much food my stomach would demand...and oh boy was it demanding food! I suppose my bright green sleeping bag is appropriate...I certainly feel like the Very Hungry Caterpillar!