June 10
One of my good friends was ordained today in the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. I was thinking of her soon after I awoke, and sorry to miss her big day. The ceremony was already started by the time I remembered to send a Congratulations her way.
South Lake Tahoe is practically in Nevada already. Just 2.7 miles into our ride we crossed our first state line. We had a mountain pass to navigate and then a steep downhill. I am not good at bicycling up mountains, and going down is both exhilarating and scary. I kept my speed fairly low, stopped a few times for photos, and my hands were worn out from applying the brakes on the way down!
On the other side of the mountains, the scenery is vastly different. It’s windy like Kansas but much chillier. We rode a total of 82 miles into Fernley, Nevada which is not too far from Reno. A few of our riders left us and we’re not picking up anyone new today.
One of the towns we went through was Genoa, a Mormon settlement founded in 1851, the first in the Nevada Territory. We went through Carson City, where our rest stop was at the Humane Society. I felt like I was running out of gas from Genoa to Carson City, but then my energy picked up again. Just out of Carson City, we headed east on Hwy 50 with a wonderful tailwind. It felt like flying!
When we turned a corner, that became a crosswind. At times I was afraid, going up a hill, that I was going to be blown off the road. I stopped at the top to cry for a bit, and then I was ok to go again.
We stayed overnight in Fernley at the St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church. And I am catching up on stuff here. I never knew how much work went into these websites!