If I ever doubted that God had a plan for us to do this ride, finish the ride, and ride it well, tonight is the night that I will always look back on as the night God showed us that he has us in his hands.
We took an early afternoon break at Latte' da in Lee Vining. Laura (a lady we met at Kennedy meadows) told us to meet the owner there who was her sister Kelly. Unfortunately today happened to be Kelly's day off. But while we were there drinking great coffee to fuel the rest of our day, I made a call to Dianne, the owner of Benton Hot Springs. We were both very tired from Sonora Pass yesterday, and already had 40 miles on the day so we weren't sure how much further we wanted to go, if at all. Dianne's place was about 47 miles from where we were. The kicker with the Hot Springs is that every site actually has it's own natural hot tub! Insane right? After Dianne, and Bill her husband, found out that we were bike tourists (they are also avid avid bike tourists) and that we were raising money for Guatemala (they spend lots of time in Nicaragua just next door, she said that if we could make it there we could have a free night! We decided to give it a shot, hoping to be there before dark.
The ride was absolutely marvelous and sparsely driven. So far it has been my second favorite road, next to 108 from Pinecrest to Kennedy Meadows (before the pass of course). After climbing for 15 miles or so up to 8139 feet, we began some rolling descents. I actually hit 51 miles an hour on one downhill, it was awesome because you could see the whole road so there were no sharp turns that could creep up on you. Needless to say the last 20 miles into Benton Hot Springs were pure bliss. The downhills were nothing near as deadly as the ones on 108. They were just perfect. We got to Benton Hot Springs around 7:15 PM. 88 miles, now our furthest day. Wow, what great timing. We met Dianne and Bill and chatted about bike touring for a while before we got into our site, with the natural hot tub! We set up camp and then slid right in to the best post-ride experience we could possibly encounter on this entire trip. How do I know that you might ask? Well, if the free site, and natural spring hot tub weren't enough, Bill made us a fantastic dinner and delivered it to us at our site... A huge piece of grilled salmon, rice, pasta salad, and a regular salad with gouda cheese (we think) and dried blueberries. I wish this night could last forever.
I began thinking about how we could possibly repay Bill and Dianne. And unfortunately I came to the conclusion that we could not really do anything ourselves at the moment. But our Lord can. I thought about the biggest thing that God has done for me and I think that it is the fact that he has given me grace to live, and to live for him. I am praying that God's grace may fall all over Bill and Dianne and Benton Hot Springs. I hope that we can share with them in the morning and pray God's blessing over them. They have blessed us beyond belief with things that we have done nothing to deserve. I hope there is something down the road that we can do for them personally.
I am in awe of God, and will continue to be for quite some time, and when I find myself lacking in awe I will look back at this time where he completely blew us away with an unearthly experience.
The dinner!!!
Our site
God Bless,
Tailwinds,
Mark
P.S. We will probably not have any service for quite sometime. We will still write blog journals, but they will probably have to be posted at a later date. Do not worry that we are not okay ;) God has us in his hands.
Tomorrow we are shooting to make it to Tonapah, NV. We may stealth camp before we make it there though depending on what time we leave this amazing place in the morning.
Us and Dianne. She was amazing.
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