Death Valley is another favorite National Park of mine. It’s a playground for me and my camera. Some see just a desert, a barren wasteland, and the madding stillness of silence, but all of this grips my soul and makes me feel a sense of wonder and deep part of it all. I keep finding myself coming back every few years to soak it all in. Death Valley has been on my bucket list of places I would love to ride my bike. Today I got that chance. Let me tell ya what, it is HOT here even in the morning. I planned to get up earlier,  but I hit the snooze button a few time.
I didn’t quite make sunrise on the Valley. I got out the door around 6:20am. It was already 81 degrees. I wasn’t expecting hills on this route but there were some. Badwater is 282 below sea level. total elevation gain for the ride was 1266 ft. and the total loss for the day was 1293. It was a fun hot ride with maybe 10 cars on the road. I saw a few coyotes trying to find breakfast. When I arrived at Badwater I had intended to rest a bit, but the flies… I took some photos as fast as I could and hopped back in the saddle. By mile 28 I was out of water and it was 111 degrees. Thankfully I had phone service and called Kelly. She came out to the rescue with a cold Powerade (thank you Coke and Eric Heitman!) My plan was to just refill the bottles and finish my planned ride of 50 miles but when I got off my bike I was super dizzy, so I called it a day.

June 6th 

From Donita

After a very difficult day of therapy and my first mental break down, God’s angels showed up. Linda and Julie  Bollman from Bennette Switch church family brought me the pick up that I needed.  This quilt has messages from my entire church family.  Julie Bollman crafted this in 13 days and Lynn Hausner quilted it! Unbelievable!!! I couldn’t be blessed more. With Norm Snyder. God is good…All the time. 

Just FYI: Therapy goes until 3:30. 

Y’all I am so excited about my first long ride today. I road from the small resort town of Mammoth Lakes to Bishop with a short jaunt to Convict Lake. It was 45 miles of smiles. I left around noon on a bike path right outside of Motel 6.  My first stop was Convict Lake. It was a long uphill climb with a nice head wind. 

Donita is feeling rather blessed. “God is amazing. Peace that passes all understanding. I can’t explain the peace I have. The pain is real but manageable. God is incredible. Please pray for my friend Jay Priest. He was hit cycling 2 days ago in Kokomo and lifelines to Methodist. My shower today was an amazing gift. I hope to be home recovering in 2-3 weeks. I will be cycling before you know it!” oh and ” I walked 67 feet today. I went that far because they had a therapy dog. Julia is blinging out my neck brace. She painted my piggies today too. been a great day. ” Thank you all for your continued prayers. They are working.

My favorite National Park is Yosemite. It’s an icon of America’s majestic natural beauty.  From the thundering waterfalls, giant sequoias, enormous granite cliff of El Captain and Half Dome, a the quiet valleys, it is easy to immerse yourself in the peacefulness of Nature. Even with so many tourists today I felt quit alone in this vast park. 

The plan was to ride in the valley, but there was so much traffic that I felt safer in the car. I probably could have ridden faster than we were driving with the bumper to bumper cars, RV and trucks but it was nice to see the park instead of being all nervous on a bike with people looking up in awe of their surrounds and not looking at the road. Kelly and I came here with our parents back in the 80’s. It brought back good memories.  I’m glad she is with me today. We both needed a healthy dose of beauty to ease our souls.

What a glorious sunrise we were treated with this morning. It was totally worth getting up at 4 to drop Jay off at the airport to see this. I got some great photos of the clouds enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so beautiful. 

We headed to Sonoma after sunrise and stopped at Wine Country Cyclery to rent Kelly a bike. We went about 8 miles total rolling through some pretty vineyards. We got to Buena Vista Vineyard and were going to do a little wine tasting and have lunch. However, it was a very hot day, and riding back up hill with having wine in our system would not be a fun experience for either of us. Plus we didn’t want to spend $50 for a boxed lunch and wine. So we hopped on the bikes and road back to the bike shop. It was a beautiful ride and one day I hope I can do a longer ride in this beautiful wine country. 

Today is a pretty special day for Donita.  She is now in the rehab hospital to start the next phase of her recovery. She can’t thank you enough for your prayers and your visits. It helps make her time go by quickly. Her best surprise today was from a LCHS classmate of our, Kent Holiday. He brought her a gift she will cherish forever:The Patron Saint of cyclists. 

Today was so much fun and spontaneous. We woke up and packed the car then headed towards San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. As I was unloading my bike to ride at the gate there were two gate security people parked in their truck. Kelly went over and asked them if there was an easy way to get to the other side of the bridge. I went over and met Al and Shawn. These two were so sweet and helpful and very encouraging. They asked me all sorts of questions about the coast to coast ride and said they have met other crazy people like me who start their journey east there.

A few months ago my massage therapist asked me if I was going to be close to Glass Beach on my bike tour. I told her that I had never heard of the place but if we were close, I would definitely want to stop and see it. I got home that day and looked it up on the map and it was going to be too far out of our way. So now today, another bucket list place for me to go and see. Kelly and I were quick to get up and out the door this morning to head to Glass Beach.

Glass Beach is part of the well-known southern beach of MacKerricher State Park in Fort Bragg. This site was once a trash dump back in 1959. Broken bottles from the garbage cans of local residents have been transformed into little treasure glass pebbles. I can now say I have walked on glass barefooted and it didn’t even hurt. I wish I could’ve taken better pictures that show you what it actually looks like in real life, but this these are the best I can do. So beautiful and to think this beautiful beach was made out of trash. It is truly beautiful to see all of these different colors of glass rocks lining the beach. If time and the movement of water can round off many sharp edges, think of what time and going through the movement of life can do to the rough edges of our souls. It can also smooth us and shapes us into little beautiful treasures.