Days 0 & 1 - Ups and Downs.

Yesterday was day 0. What a day. Leaving Knoxville yesterday morning was one of the hardest things i have done3 in so long. I mean it was hard. I was basically miserable all day. Once i got on the plane it got a bit easier but landing in Denver, well it was miserable again.(ups and downs... get it, like my emotions were up and down) Every 2 seconds i was thinkin i had made a mistake. There is still a part of me that thinks that, but i will talk about that later. So i get to Portland and i call Daniel and he says he is at baggage claim, he lied, he was at my gate waiting and i was so stoked to see him . It had been far too long. He and i are just chlilin at the airport throwing frisbee waiting on our shuttle and we met a lady named Amy. Amy talks to us for a bit and we finally get on the shuttle to go to portland she offered to have us over the next night, tonight, for a salmon bbq and a bed to stay in. We obviously said yes to that, but hey we were like let's see. sometimes stuff happens and things call thru. After getting to my aunts house we put our bikes together and all that then decided we had to eat. Carbs! Went and got pasta. had a really cool server too, Janae was her name. Kinda told her abotu what were were doing and we decided we would get a group of people to go for a bike ride after she got off of work. Daniel and i were so excited. Ended up falling thru but hey stuff happens. He and i went to bed at like 1030... so it was a good night.

Day 1, what an epic day. It was our first ride together. We decided we would leave by 1 today cause we had a few things to do beforehand. Woke up around 10... i did at least and ended up getting coffee with Janae and her friend Charlotte. Best dirty chai i have ever had in my life. No questions asked about that. SOOOO Good. She ended up showing us to the bike shop and how to get the the grocery store. We had no clue where we were going. it ws quite funny! So ya after all that we loaded down our bikes and hit the road. So abotu 5 miles in we started climbing a hill... we climbed for literally 7 miles at about a 7 percent grade. it was awful. the other side wasn't even that much of a downhill... it was totally bull. haha. Then after the short decent we find yet abnother climb waiting on the other side. I think total out of our 57 miles... 45 of those were climbing miles. Everytime we rounded a blind corner there was another climb waitiing for us. Which i will say every climb had a crapy downhill side. So hopefully tomorrow will be a good one! Took us 6.5 hours to go 57 miles... Keep in mind that we are riding into a headwind and to top it off it rained for 6 out of the 6.5 hours. We ended the day though getting into Newport, Or and having dinner with an amazing family. They are even letting us stay the night here in a bed. Feels so good. plus the hot shower after our ride... what a night! I forgot to mention about 3 inutes after getting into Newport, well, Daniels handlebars go boom and i turn around and he is on thte ground. He is ok, but it scared us both for sure.

Today though mentally that rain was demoralizng. I honestly have thought if i leave now i have enough money for a  plane ticket. I wouldn't leave this trip but today broke me quite a bit. I miss home, i miss people, and i really just struggled today. My knee isn't doign so great so if you can send a good vibe or prayer my way for my knees healing. I am not gonna back out of this trip. I might have my knee looked at tomorrow in Corballis... we will see how it is feeling. So ya, there is my day 1 and 0. Overall this trip has been epic thus far. I can't complain. I am falling asleep as i type this so i think i am going to go to bed. i hope you enjoy reading these. ia m not the best writer but i am really trying to make it interesting.

Yesterday sucked then got a lil bit better. Today was good then sucked. ha. (ups and downs??)]g'night to everyone. Encouraging tweets or text or FB messages are amazing and help me make it thru. Love you all!