Day 5- Day of Rest

Seeley Lake: J and I wake up late, very late. I continue to stay in bed and read as J wakes up later than I do on most days. My body is wondering what's up with all of this inactivity. It's starting to get sore. We take our time, having asked for the latest possible checkout time: noon. We watch some tv, repack our gear in the backpacks, putting the stinky laundry at the very bottom. We have one more big day of riding, one optional day and we're done.

We leave our gear at the front desk and ride our bikes back to camp. There's only a handful of people there and everyone left is reading/snoozing in the shade. This looks like my sort of day. I book a massage for after dinner and it's a slow, sweet afternoon. People arrive back at camp around 1, having spent the morning at Morrell Falls. I have a pang of regret that we didn't join them, but then I remember sleeping in and that regret goes away. We hit a local hot dog/ice cream stand for lunch with Eddy and Anna. I have a huckleberry shake and it's pretty divine.

The rest of the day is much like the morning- we sit in the shade at camp, in a circle swapping stories and talking for the first time to people we have not seen all trip. They are all basically cool people, all coming from different areas with different lives, but we have things in common and enjoy our group time. Especially Ron, from Durango, CO, telling us stories of trying to get rid of pocket gophers. He must have used Caddyshack as a reference. Hilarious!

J and I head out to the lake in the late afternoon for a swim. It's nice to be back out on our bikes to stretch our legs. Then it's time for dinner. Yes, you've guessed it. This has been our day of rest. We did nothing. It was heaven.

Speaking of heaven, dinner was divine! This was one of my favorite meals of the trip. Yum! Then, massage. I have had a lot of massages in my day, but I don't think I've ever been when my muscles were sore. My shoulders take a lot of the brunt of my daily tension and the more tired I get, the more I lean on them on my handlebars. So, they are all sorts of knotted. Every massage therapist spends a lot of time working on my shoulders. In this particular massage, I almost asked her to stop working on them. It hurt so bad I could hardly stand it. But, for the rest of my body it was pretty darn nice. Afterwards, I was a limp noodle. I was groggy and ready for bed.

This night is one of the coolest we've had, as well as being quiet. The tent is starting to feel like home and we are cozy in it.