Day Eighteen — Tatum Bunnett

Day 18

51.87 miles

4,888 ft (elevation gain)

616.3 total miles

Silver City -> Hillsboro

Today went really well! We woke up to no rain and dry roads, but it was really cold outside. Everything was frosty when we woke up and when we left. We had to wear all of our winter cycling gear, I thought we weren’t going to need it at all on this trip but I’m really happy we brought it. The ride started with about 20 miles of gradual uphill and a few fun downhills. We rode past a massive that we couldn’t even see the bottom of. Throughout the whole day the roads were super quiet, and paved pretty well. After lunch we started our major accent, to the top of 8,228 ft Emory Pass, the biggest climb in the whole trip. The climb it self really was as not that bad, we decided to do it in our granny gears and just take it easy. With dad and I still being kind of sick it was definetly a good choice. It’s really nice to have one of the hardest parts behind us now, it should be pretty flat most of the way now. The scenery through the whole climb was beautiful, we were in massive valleys with a stream on one side of us, and massive boulders and pine trees on the other side. It was really nice to have some trees that reminddd us of tahoe, a lot of the trees along the ride we’re changing colors so that was really nice to see as well. It was also cool to have some chilly weather, I was sick of the heat, it wasn’t nice to cool down. The ride ended with about 20 miles of fast and curvy down hill. It was super fun but a little terrifying, dad and I took it pretty slow and made it down safely. The descent was pretty cold but we had and absurd amount of layers on. Tomorrow we have a fairly large day, so we’re all playing on going to bed early.

Bundled up and ready to go (we look like a bunch of glow sticks).

We have no cell service and slow internet, so pictures are taking forever to download, so there are less photos today, sorry.

Please help raise funds for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) at https://www.firstgiving.com/event/rsds/Ride-Across-The-Country-For-CRPS