Day 41 - June 26 - Lee Vining, CA

Once again I didn’t sleep well because I was set up on sand and still had no sleeping mat. I got up late and Chance and Kelly set out pretty early. All night there were sirens going off and other noises. Then in the morning, before the sun came up a rooster was making a ton of noise which made a bunch of dogs sound barking then about 20 more animals started making sounds that I didn’t know existed so I had to get up pretty early too. I set out about a half hour after the other 2 and the first few miles were brutal.

It was about a 50 mile ride that I had planned out for the day. I was going to the base of the Tioga pass and planning to go over it the next day. I didn’t know what the terrain would be like for the day and it ended up being horrible. The first seven miles were brutal and I felt like crap from the day before. I walked part of the seven percent grade and though the climbing would be done for a while. After I got over it was just hill after hill. There were a few miles of rolling hills followed by a few miles of “dips” where it looked like California was too lazy to just dig a hole through the terrain to make a flat road. I caught up with the other two cyclists about twenty miles down the road and started biking together. It was pretty brutal so we were taking it slow. My map didn’t show it, but we were coming to an 8,000 ft. summit that I didn’t know was there. We made it through some more brutal hills and got to the summit about ten miles later. When we got to the top, there were some people who were setting up an RV that was signaling the end of a bicycle race. We talked for a few minutes then went to go down the hill when they shouted over to us asking us to come back and have some soda and food. We ended up staying for a few hours and I ate a shit load of food. They were all pretty cool and when we started to leave they all started cheering, it was cool but kind of weird. The ride down was really nice, for the first time since Colorado I finally started to see some trees. There was a lot of cool scenery and I got some cool pictures. In the distance was the mountain we’d have to climb over the next day. There were a few more hills that I could barely make it over because of all the climbing earlier in the day. Eventually we made it to Lee Vining and found an overpriced RV park to camp at.

We spent the rest of the day going around town and chilling out. I got a crappy little mat to use for the rest of the trip but hopefully it would be enough. There was wifi at the RV park but it was 6 bucks to use and I didn’t want to give them any more money. I got some decent sleep because there was actually some grass there and I was able to take a shower.