After saying our goodbyes to Eddie this morning, we got back on the road. Our legs were a bit sore from hiking two days before, but we got back into the groove fairly quickly. We first headed south from Merced for about 15 miles, then we turned onto Hwy. 152. If you are considering biking this road, don't do it. It was so full of potholes, cracks, debris, and the traffic was flying by at 70+ mph. There were a few sections that were much smoother, but we all agreed that it was one of the worst roads of our trip. 

We made the most it though. There weren't any other roads that we could have taken at that point, so we kept trucking along. We stopped along the way in Los Banos to go to the grocery store. There were two different people that came up to congratulate us. Both of them had seen us biking further back and were impressed that we had made it that far. Now that we are nearing the end of our trip, our faces must be bearing some expressions of accomplishment!

After Los Banos, the last 15 miles or so of our ride were uphill. We had to go from about 100 ft to 1,400 ft. We were hoping this would be the last big climb of the trip. When we finally made it to the top, we turned off of Hwy. 152 to head toward Pacheco State Park. The road was all downhill; we started to worry about having to climb back up it the following day to get back to Hwy. 152. After about 2 miles of going downhill, we decided to stop. Rebekah's GPS said it was still 3 more miles to the state park. We didn't want to keep descending after we had worked so hard to climb that pass. We also found out that camping wasn't even available at this particular state park.

Without any other viable options, we turned around to climb up the hill we just came down. It was tough after already pedaling 65 miles. We started thinking about our options and figured the best would be to continue onto the next town, Gilroy, which was 28 miles away. Unfortunately, we were all out of water at this point. Luckily, there was a house nearby with cars in the driveway. We decided that it might be even better to ask if we could camp in their yard. 

We walked up to the house and were greeted with lots of barking. A man came to the door and seemed very surprised to see us (they don't get a whole lot of visitors out here...especially not bicyclists). We explained our situation and he said that we would be able to camp just up the road (it was state park land used for parking/day hikes. We thanked him and headed over there.

As we were setting up our tents and cooking dinner, the man showed up. He told us that he called his wife, Kathy, and that they'd love for us to stay with them in their house! We happily accepted and decided to head over there after we finished cooking our dinner. 

To get to their house, we opted to take the "shortcut." Instead of going back to the road, we headed through the fields and a maze of cattle gates/guards. We kept opening and closing big metal gates and pushing our bikes through the sandy/manure-y terrain. Eventually, we ended up in a fenced off area that contained their two horses. The horses seemed excited to see us; they came right up to us and let us pet them. The man, Jim, was outside mowing the lawn. He came to help us out of the horse pen.

Jim and Kathy built their house just 4 years ago and it is gorgeous! They allowed to stay in the front two bedrooms and use the front shower. As always, it felt so good to get clean and have comfy beds to sleep in. Kathy even made chicken fajitas for us (yes, that means we had a second dinner). Since Emily is a vegetarian, Jim made her a special meal. He baked a huge portobello mushroom with squash, bruschetta, onions, cheese, and other goodies. We topped all that off with mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert! What an awesome way to end our day!

We can't thank Jim and Kathy enough for all of their warm hospitality. They turned our tough day into an unexpected wonderful evening!! Thanks :)