Race Across the USA!!!! San Francisco to New York City. We finish!

 On June 1 we signed up for one of Candice's virtual races.

It was a Race Across the USA.  Starting in San Francisco and ending in New York City.

Candice is smart about her business, so set the race up for a wide variety of types of runners and cyclists.  We entered as a team of cyclists, Vicky and me.  Our team name was "Marina and Stella's Septuagenarian Grandparents."  We thought Marina and Stella would get a kick out of our team name since Race Across the USA is one of the races that was created and put on by their mother‘s business, Destination Trail.

 We came in........last...in the division of cyclists.

HOWEVER, in our defense, we only had two members on our team, and the other two teams had four and five.  Plus we took three weeks out in the middle of the race to cycle the STP with our family.  See?  We aren't insecure about coming in..........last.  Really.  We're OK with it.  Doesn't bother us at all.  Not even worth mentioning.  Who cares? 

Actually we don't care whether we "won" or not.  We figure at our age and with what we have been dealing with that just finishing is "winning."

This is the map where we recorded and tracked our progress.  We had fun looking on the map at where we had cycled each day.  It was especially fun when we “cycled” across a state line and entered a new state!

 And here we are in front of our map of where we have traveled during the last nine years.  I am pointing to our race starting place, and Vicky is holding the end of the string showing our goal, the finish line in New York City.

It isn't easy to see, but there is a yellow string from San Francisco to New York showing our journey.

Here is the t-shirt we both got:

We also earned a belt buckle.  Through the years every finisher in one of Candice’s 200+ mile races has been awarded with a belt buckle.  Pretty cool, huh?

The coolest part of this is that we rode, as a team 2572 miles ALL IN LEISURE WORLD.   Leisure World is about 1 1/4 miles by 1 1/4 miles.  The roads twist and turn so much that we could cycle for several days with hardly riding on the same street  twice.  But we still know every pothole by name.

And here is another cool fact.  We rode all of those miles...ALL of them..in the dark.  ALL of them at 2:30 in the morning.  After all, we live in Arizona, and the summers are like living in an oven.  So, in the middle of the night it is more comfortable for riding and there is no traffic at all.  It is the safest place on the planet to cycle.

I have our tandem bike lit up like a Christmas Tree (that is what one person said about it).  In fact, this morning, we happened to meet a car driving in the opposite direction.  The driver pulled to the side of the road and stopped.  We assumed that the driver thought we were an emergency vehicle.  Imagine his/her surprise!

We did this race while at the same time both of us individually rode 206 miles on the Seattle to Portland ride in the middle of July.  We paused during this STP time on our Race Across the USA.  We didn't count our miles for both events, so we both rode the STP and we rode as a "team" from San Francisco to New York.

To do this while I was undergoing 45 treatments consisting of radiation, the major side effect for most people being fatigue, is something that we are so proud of.  I could not have done this without my Vicky.

So we are here, New York.  It's OK, but we like our home in Leisure World much better.  We'll be home tonight!

Our road trips are what define us

For the past several days we have been living in the bed of our pickup.  The last four months our focus in life has been killing cancer cells.  For now we have a reprieve. This cancer does not define who we are.  We will not let it.  We are grandparents, cyclists, and dancers. 

And in a powerful way, it is the years of road trips roaming the country that define who we are.  The summer we were married we were amazed to find that we had both always wanted to go on a road trip.  So we bought an old decrepit truck and camper and off we went with no idea what “going on a road trip” even meant.   (We learned fast!)

Since that first road trip eight and a half years ago, we have slept 3 years' worth of days in our truck/camper, teardrop, or our tent.  That we have done this for 3 years is almost impossible for us to grasp.  And almost everyday we have hiked and explored the most remote areas of our beautiful country that we can find.  

This week we took our 720th hike since we got married and started taking road trips 8 1/2 years ago.  That is almost 2 solid years of hiking every day.  Two years' worth of days we have hiked together in the past 8 1/2 years. 

We now know what a going on a road trip means for us.  We thrive on them.  We need to be lost in the middle of nowhere, all alone.  This is who we are....this is what defines us.

This week we were back on the road again in our Turtle (F350 with a slide-in camper) camping in the middle of nowhere on an old dirt road with no one around.  The only sounds we could hear was the wind through the trees and the coyotes singing throughout the night.  We hiked and explored during the mornings, and in the afternoons we read, worked on our hobbies, and sat quietly enjoying the solitude and birds singing to us (and Dan savoring his wine).

It has been beastly hot at our home this summer, setting new records for the hottest and driest summer.  During our years of road trips Dan and I have discovered that for every 1000’ of elevation gain, the temperature drops about 5 degrees.  The lower elevations in Arizona are perfect for camping in the winter, but in the summer camping would be absolutely miserable (none of our rigs have air conditioning as that would require electrical hook-ups which are only available in urban campgrounds).  

Our plan this summer was to try camping north of our home at around 7000’ to see if the temperature would drop enough to be comfortable for hiking, for relaxing during the hot afternoons, and cool enough to sleep at night.

We left home in 110 degrees and drove 100 miles north up onto the Mogollon Rim, in the Coconino National Forest.  We found a great campsite perched on the rim of the Fossil Springs Wilderness at 6900’ elevation.  We were less than three hours from home and it was 89 degrees.....wonderfully cool!

Our question was answered.  Yes, we can live in the bed of our pickup in the middle of summer in Arizona.  This is very good news for us and our life!

Within five minutes after we set up camp, I had already made a truly amazing discovery....a fossil of a shell at almost 7000’ ABOVE sea level!  It looked very similar to the shells we have found at sea level at Ebey’s Landing on Whidbey Island when we had lived in Washington.

I knew that I had found something very, very old, but was perplexed on how I had made this discovery. Dan being the smart guy that he is made the connection, “Well, Vicky, we are right next to the FOSSIL Springs Wilderness.“

 I found that this area was a haven for fossil hunting.  I have collected unusual rocks and fossilized bones for years.  We even found 30 million year-old fossils in the Badlands National Park and the Oglala National Grasslands.  

Our home and gardens are decorated with my special finds from nature.  This year for my birthday Dan gave me several books on rocks, mineral, and treasures of the natural world.  So you can imagine my joy to be in a place that I could collect to my heart’s content!

So how did the shells end up 7000’ above sea level?  It turns out that Arizona was last under water 311-290 million years ago.  The Mogollon Rim plateau, where we were camped, extends 200 miles across Arizona the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau.  It is a geological formation that rises 2000-3000 feet abruptly above the land to the south, and many of the rock formations on the edge of the rim are similar to those found on the walls of the Grand Canyon.

The Mogollon Rim was formed by the end of the Permian Period which ended 251.9 years ago, so the shell fossils that I found must be at least 251.9 years old!  

Thinking that he shell fossils I am holding in my hand were living organisms over 250 millions years ago, makes Dan and me realize how brief and precious life is.  We are thankful for and treasure each day. 

We hiked every day and had a wonderful time.  We are usually hiking in deserts or grasslands so it was especially fun to be high on this plateau with ponderosa pines and vistas of deep ravines into the Fossil Springs Wilderness.

We discovered old obscure abandoned roads down into the Fossil Springs Wilderness creek bed:

On one hike we saw a coyote loping through the woods.  It was so large that at first we thought it might be a wolf.  Unfortunately, we were unable to get a picture of it.

During our lazy afternoons I knitted and Dan constructed a 1914 Stutz model car:

I started knitting another sweater for our baby granddaughter.

I finished knitting a backpack.  Two and a half years ago I made up my own pattern and knitted and felted my first backpack.   I ended up making eight more before this one.  I was trying to make the perfect backpack.  It needed to be just the right size to fit my wallet/purse, rPhone, iPad, a knit project, and a light STP jacket.  Each one was beautiful, but had something about it that was not just right.  

When we get home and I felt this backpack, it really will be the perfect size....I hope.  My fingers and toes are crossed.  It looks ridiculously awkward and large.  We’ll see....

After we arrived home, I felted my new backpack and I finally have made the PERFECT backpack!

Dan’s beautifully painted and constructed Stutz....hopefully we can get it home in one piece:

Every afternoon in the sky to the north black ominous clouds formed, the wind picked up, there were lightning strikes, and the camper shook from the thunderclaps.  There were just a few drops of rain, until our last afternoon when it poured for a hour or so.  This was our first rain since early March.  We loved it!

Living this past week in the bed of our pickup was so familiar.  We were home again, snuggled in our Little Home. Listening to coyotes sing throughout the night, hiking unmarked roads, making discoveries every day, lazy afternoons in the sun, day after day together with no other human being around......this is what defines us.  

That is why, after four months of doctors' appointments and nine weeks of radiation, this trip to the top of the Mogollon Rim was so important for us.  We are back in the saddle again.....

We have cycled 20,000 miles together since we were married!

Both Dan and I have ridden our bikes since we were little children.  Our parents rarely drove us places during the daylight hours. Our bikes were our form of  transportation.  

I rode my bike to school, to see friends, to the store to buy penny candy, to the pool and beach, to go to special places to have picnics with friends, and to the “Farm” to care for and ride my horse.  I would put on a costume, decorate my bike, attach playing cards to my spokes to imitate a motorcycle, and ride in the local parade every summer.  I was on my bike most every day and rode it virtually everywhere I wanted to go.

We rode hundreds of miles as children.  In those days it was unusual to see an adult on a bicycle....or a kid riding in a car. 

When I went away to college, I bought a 10-speed Peugeot, and for four years my bike was my only form of transportation.  I rode it to my classes on campus, to do my grocery shopping and laundry, out to the wheat fields of Eastern Washington to feel wild and free, and to Taco Time where I worked 4-5 days a week.

As an adult I always had a bike hanging around the garage.  I rode many miles with my children until they took off as young teenagers on their own with their bikes and horses.  I would often jump on my bike to do an errand in the local village, for a spin down Saratoga Road, to the local Farmer’s Market, and to feel the wind blow through my hair and the exhilaration of “flying” down a hill.  

But I never thought of myself as a cyclist.  I was a “runner.”  I ran (actually jogged) several times a week on the trails through the beautiful forests and fields of Whidbey Island.  I knew every trail and was constantly exploring new parks and trails.

......And then I met Dan in the spring over nine years ago.......and he was a “cyclist!"

By summer we were married and two days after the wedding, we rode our bikes together for the first time.  

We were married in Mesa.  Dan’s father preformed our ceremony, and mother sang at our wedding.  The next day we flew home to the Pacific Northwest to celebrate with my family as Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Graybill.  I wore my wedding dress on the airplane home and that evening to the family celebration.  

The next day Dan and I rode our bikes east of Seattle on the Burke-Gilman Trail.  I had worn my wedding dress all day for the two previous days.  We were planning on dancing that afternoon at a cafe where our friends’ band from Whidbey Island was performing.  I was so very happy to be married to Dan that I decided to wear my wedding dress for the third day.....after all, how many brides get to enjoy dressing up in their wedding dress for their new husband every day!

Here I am on our first bike ride together, wearing my wedding dress:

Since that day in early August, Dan and I have ridden our bikes all over our beautiful country.  We have cycled all over Whidbey Island, the San Juan Islands, Washington State, and the Pacific Northwest.  We cycled through the wine country north of San Fransisco, on the ocean in Monterey California, through Red Canyon in Utah, at Stone Mountain in Georgia, on the trails in Fort Collins Colorado, in the Mojave National Preserve, and through the middle of Death Valley National Park.

We have cycled in many organized bike rides including the Seattle to Portland Bike Ride (seven times with Jules, and one time virtually with our children, grandsons, and family), the Tour de Whidbey, the Tour de Peaks, Brews Cruise, and Daffodil Classic in Western Washington, the Apple Century and Inland Empire in Eastern Washington, and the Tour de Tugaloo with Sean in Georgia and South Carolina. 

We even rode the “Tour de Leisure World!”

And now we are cycling the Race Across USA (virtually) and we are almost to the finish line in New York City!

Dan was a cyclist when I met him and I am now a “cyclist” too!

We cycle for fun and we cycle for exercise.  We cycle because we like to feel the wind blow through our hair and the exhilaration of “flying” down a hill.  We ride our bikes because when we cycle we feel like children again.

As of today we have cycled 20,000 together!

The Twilight Zone...........2 month marathon

Last year we bought the entire Twilight Zone series.  1959 to 1964.

On IMDB Twilight Zone is listed as #21 in all time series.  It should be much higher.

.

This series is nothing short of awesome.  It was really the Rod Serling show.  He wrote most of the episodes, chose the rest, and all had a theme about being anti-racist and anti-war. 

The stories are moving and meaningful.  The "twist" is usually used to teach some kind of lesson.

Rod Serling wrote most of them.  He was a genius who died much too young.

I remember several of them from my childhood.  These are the ones that are vivid:

Time Enough at Last.  This is a story about a man who finally gets to be alone with his beloved books after a nuclear war......and breaks his only pair of glasses.

The Invaders.  Do you like Agnes Moorheard?  I always did.  This one is very memorable.

A Hundred Yards over the Rim.  Pretty cool. A boy gets sick while on a wagon train.  His father goes for help.  When he crosses a rim, he finds himself in "modern" times.  He finds in the town he arrives at that there is a medicine that can save his boy, so he takes it and goes back to his son.  The townspeople chase him, but when he is goes back over the rim, he disappears and is back at his wagon train.  His boy is the inventor of the medicine that ends up saving him!

The Grave.  Why I remember this one escapes me, although it featured some of the best actors:  Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, and James Best.  It is a western, so maybe that's why I remembered it.

The Midnight Sun.  This one has a twist that one never sees coming.   But I remembered it. 

To Serve Man.  An alien race comes to Earth to save us--to provide us with everything we need for happiness.  However....there is a catch.  This one is an episode I remembered vividly.

Then there are some meaningful ones I didn't remember that we are now really finding to be moving...ones that showed Rod Serling's depth and how much he was really before his time.  

He was so talented.  All of his stories had heart and had a message.  And, unfortunately, he died young. 

The Big Tall Wish.  What is unique about this episode is that it featured Black American characters.  This was in 1959, when Black Americans were hardly on television.  The story is moving.  A boxer allows himself to get beat to be able to be a father-figure to a little boy.  Wow.

Once Upon a Time.  This one features Buster Keaton in one of his last roles.  It is extraordinarily clever.  It begins in the 1920s, so Keaton is doing his silent movie routine, and then it fast forwards to the "present" and then back.  Keaton was so very talented. 

Kick the Can:  This one is wonderful.  A bunch of old people at an old peoples' home decide that old age is just a frame of mind,  So they decide, one night, to all go outside and play kick the can.  And of course, the final scene shows them as children running, playing, and laughing.  So sweet.

The Changing of the Guard:  A sweet story about a man (Donald Pleasense) who is forced to retire from a boys' school, and is despondent.  Then, one night, many of his former students show up to tell him how much what he taught them changed their lives.  It is what we all want--to feel like we made a difference with somebody.   Instead of being despondent, he retires with grace and dignity. 

He's Alive:  This one is simply spooky.  Spooky not in a Halloween way, but spooky in terms of how brilliant Rod Serling truly was.  The story is about a young man who worships dictators and, with a small group of supporters, starts giving lectures.  The lectures sound like Donald Trump, with a lot of blame of minorities and immigrants.  And the reasoning he uses sounds like Donald Trump.  He speaks to unhappy people seeking somewhere to place the blame for their unhappiness--and immigrants and minorities are ripe pickings. 

Remember, this was shown in 1963.  Serling was way ahead of his time. 

 

In Praise of Pip:  This one is a real tear jerker.  Jack Klugman plays a man who has only one redeeming quality:  He loves his son.  And once again, Rod Serling is far ahead of his time.  The story begins with his son, Pip, being seriously injured in....Vietnam.  This was well before we really went to war in Vietnam.   The way Serling puts together Klugman's realization of his failures and how much he loves his son and how he saves him is simply marvelous.

Steel:  Watching this we realized that we had "seen it" before, except it was a recent movie.  Real Steel.  

Nightmare at 20,000 feet:  Pre-Star-Trek William Shatner in a story with a terrific twist.  He plays someone with a flying phobia who nobody takes seriously......but should. 

 

The first three seasons were great.  Clever, insightful, and funny.   It moved to an hour in length in season 4, and they were just not as good.  Basically they were 30-minute episodes stretched to an hour.  By season 5 the cleverness had run its course.

Still, the first three seasons were groundbreaking.  We really enjoyed them.  They were fun, moving, and smart.

Bigfoot is wearing a mask!

(Keep Bigfoot healthy when you run one of  the Destination Trail Bigfoot Elusive races.)

The BIGFOOT races were scheduled for mid-August, but had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.  So Destination Trail, the sponsor, is offering a virtual Bigfoot race.  Instead of calling it the BIGFOOT Virtual race, this year it is the BIGFOOT Elusive Race.

In previous years over 200 runners, their support crews and pacers, the Destination Trail staff, medical personnel, dozens of volunteers, and several family members meet up in the forest in Washington State between Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams.  The runners are supported with aid, food, and sleep stations throughout the 200+ mile course.  

There is a tense and excited atmosphere at dawn on the morning the race begins, with a volunteer dressed as a shaggy “Bigfoot” cheering the runners as they cross the Start Line.  The runners have 100 hours to complete the race. The first three finishers for men and women get artistically handmade plaques, and everyone who finishes the race gets a belt buckle.   

Due to COVID-19, Bigfoot is wearing her/ his face mask this year. When Dan and I noticed the face mask on Bigfoot, we both burst out laughing.  Here is a picture of the belt buckles:

We are going to finish the BIGFOOT Elusive 200 and earn our belt buckle!  We expect that they will be a collectors item since this year the race will be virtual and will be the only time the belt buckles will include the word “Elusive”.  Actually the truth is—we wanted a Bigfoot belt buckle anyway.

This year the BIGFOOT Elusive Race started August 1 and ends on September 30th.  To reach the finish line is actually 206.5 miles.  Some of the racers are seasoned ultra runners and plan to run/walk the entire Bigfoot race in one big push.  They want to win the race and/or see how fast they can run it.  Those who run/walk the distance the fastest anytime during these two months and provide verification of their time will be awarded the first, second, and third place plaques.

Our goal is not to “win” the race.  We just want to finish  We think it would be very cool to win the prize for the slowest time (there really is a prize for last place finisher).  After all, we are the only entrants who are in their 70’s!  And our bodies don’t hold up well if we hike over five miles a day without some rest days.  

For this reason we do a variety of activities.  We not only walk/hike but also cycle, swim play ping pong, and do ballroom dancing.  We are very fortunate because we both enjoy so many different activities, and it’s even more fun because we get to do them together.

My daughter, Candice, is the owner and Race Director for Destination Trail.  She scoped out each area and created and designed every race that Destination Trail offers.  Dan and I volunteered at the inaugural Tahoe 200 and at the inaugural Moab 240 races, but we have never attended a Bigfoot race.

Although we haven’t been to a Bigfoot race, these forests and mountains in central Washington have a very special meaning to us.  In 2014 we took our grandsons, Ian and Adam, camping and hiking through most all of the Bigfoot race course!

Because of this camping experience with Adam and Ian, as we “run” the BIGFOOT Elusive 206.5 in our community and remote desert camping locations in Arizona, we will be able to see all the forests and mountains on the actual Bigfoot trail in our memories.  And those memories will include Ian and Adam playing and hiking with us.  Ian who was then only 10 years old and Adam who was seven.  Now they are young men, but we will get to "see" them as boys again.

Here we are with Adam and Ian with Mt. Rainier in the background in 2014.

The following pictures are of the forests and mountains of the Bigfoot race. 

Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980.  Due to the ash explosions and pyroclastic flows it was the deadliest and most economically destructive event in US history.  

 Mt. St. Helens and Spirit Lake:

Spirit Lake was completely displaced by the avalanche and heated to body temperature when Mt. St. Helens erupted.  The blast-felled trees were swept into Spirit Lake as water displaced by the landslide receded. 

Spirit Lake with Mt. Rainier peaking over the top of the foothills:

 

Mt. Rainier is the highest mountain in Washington State and in the Cascade Mountain Range.  It is an active stratovolcano. Due to the probability of an eruption in the near future it is considered one of the most dangerous volcanos in the world.

Majestic view of Mt. Rainier:

 

We are both at mile 66 of the virtual Bigfoot race.  We are north of Spirit Lake and can “see” Mt. St. Helens looming over the lake and Mt, Rainier to the north.  This morning we passed Norway Aid Station and we are on our way to Elk Pass Aid Station.

Each morning as we go on our walk around our community lakes and golf courses or hike in our beautiful deserts we talk about where we are on the BIGFOOT Elusive Race course, which Aid station we are approaching or have just passed.  We talk about the “mountains” we would be seeing in the distance, and we talk about all the fun adventures we have had with our grandchildren and all the adventures we will have in the years to come.  It is an elusive journey into the past and future.

Celebrating during “the hottest summer and third driest monsoon on record”

Today in the local paper we saw the headlines that the Phoenix area “the hottest summer and third driest monsoon on record.” 

This was no surprise to us.  We have been living in Mesa, and due to the pandemic and Dan’s daily radiation treatments, we have been unable to leave the area, even to go to our beloved deserts to go camping and hiking in higher elevations where it would be considerably cooler. 

It sounds sort of miserable to live in this heat, but we love it.  This is our home and it is perfect for us. 

This summer during Dan’s radiation treatments we have almost completed our virtual Ride Across USA (we're "in" Pennsylvania,2300 miles from San Francisco), we virtually rode the STP with our family including our grandsons, and we have started the virtual Destination Trail Bigfoot Elusive 206.5 ultra-run (ultra-walk for us).

Today was the last day of Dan’s 45 radiation treatments.  We have cycled and walked 1200 miles during the nine weeks he has been undergoing treatment.  During this nine weeks at 2:30 a.m. when we get up to start our outside fun activities (some people call this exercise) the temperatures have been between 81 and 95 degrees.  

I am so proud of Dan.  He has been so very courageous and faced this cancer with such a positive attitude and determination to get well.  He is my superman.  

The radiation clinic “awards” their patients with a certificate of completion of  treatment.  Here is Dan after his last treatment with his (actually quite cool) certificate:

We have to wait for six weeks and get more testing to find out if the radiation has killed the cancer cells or if more treatment is needed.

But as of today 45 days, nine weeks of radiation is completed, and this week we are celebrating!

The first thing Dan did was thank me for being there for him and to let me know that he was thinking of me during each of his treatments.  He did this by giving me a charming vintage card, which he left in the seat of the car for me as he walked in for his final treatment.

Dan gets to eat the food he likes now, and so his next celebration was to throw away the Maalox!

For part of our celebration this week Emily surprised us by sending cookies that Dan had jokingly said he expected in the mail this week.  Dan is so touched he was crying when I took this picture.

Soren and Sebastian wrote such touching loving notes to their Grandpa that we were both in tears.

We are extremely happy to get to go back to our normal high fiber diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, especially our yummy HOT Mexican food.  We have missed my sautéed asparagus so tonight we will have a double serving of asparagus with bacon cheeseburgers.  As a special surprise I baked Dan chocolate chip cookies!

 

We will celebrate tomorrow evening with my special homemade nachos, Saturday dinner will be our celebratory fondue, and Sunday we will enjoy our favorite chicken tacos with Pasilla peppers and fresh cilantro.  

I get to pick out a special bottle of wine for Dan.  I think a Sangiovese tonight.....

For the past 76 days straight we have gotten up in the middle of the night while it is still relatively cool to ride our tandem bike, “Daisy,” and to walk over four miles.  This was a goal that we have had since we were given Dan’s diagnosis.  We believed that the best thing we could do to insure the best recovery was to keep our life a “normal” as possible, for Dan to eat well, sleep well each night, and to continue to exercise as much as possible.  So every morning for 76 days, without fail, we spent our first three hours of the day exercising.

Tomorrow morning for the first time in 76 days we will not ride “Daisy” and take our 4+ mile walk.  Tomorrow we are going on a hike in our lovely desert!  We will be at our starting point at daybreak and hike until the sun gets too far above the mountains, and the day heats up.  We will wear our headlamps and rattlesnake gaiters, and we will have a wonderful time!

This is a time to celebrate life and each other and our family, a time to cherish and remember.  And on this Sunday afternoon, like for every Sunday afternoon, we will take each other in our arms and dance.

August 19, 2020:   Here is our week of celebration in pictures.  

Our early morning hike in Peralta Canyon:

 

 

Our fondue dinner and the first time we were able to eat asparagus in ten weeks:

In our Activity Room dancing the cha-cha to Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou”:

.......and our celebration has just begun!