“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭

Another hard day. Thank you for being patient with me as I am slow to get these up. We woke up around 3 today and got going around 4. It rained a bit in the night again so some more soft surfaces to ride on. DAD read out the lyrics to this song. Love how applicable it is. It was really hard putting on all my cold and wet clothes again but hopefully just one more day. It’s really hard not knowing if I’ll be done today or not. We got going more in the brutal road. We had a couple climbs and both our legs were trashed. But not much you can do about it. I saw signs for a construction zone. I was praying there wouldn’t be a flagger. I was riding and looked behind me to see where dad was and I slipped on some real loose gravel and fell. Not anything bad just demoralizing on a hard day. I laid down for a bit then sucked it up. Can’t complain. Keep riding. We hit a flagger. Met Curtis who told us we need a pilot car. Nothing you can do now. I feel like that was God’s way of telling me it’s more than the miles. We waited around and I ended up crying as I talked to Curtis. Lots of emotions for me. Kurt picked us up in the truck and drove us about 5 miles. Pretty frustrating. As we left, we saw Jeff and Vern again! Got to talk to them for just a bit. We started to hit some wind. I knew it would be bad all day today. Tried to grind it out. I was a little low on food and was trying to conserve most the day. Eventually we made it. Slowly but surely we clipped off the miles. I really had to go to the bathroom but there were no trees so I waited for about 6 hours lol. A truck stopped us and told us there was a Musk Ox up ahead. We filled up water and had a lot of lunch. Finished off most of the food. Felt good to be a little full. Kept going and saw Lewis. We saw him on the side of the road in Fairbanks with his bike waiting for a hitch to Deadhorse. He was on his way down to Argentina. Cool guy. A few more cars stopped us and told us about a musk ox. And then we saw it! Lewis told us that it was only about 10k more of gravel. I was holding onto that. We made it to the pave! I felt like I could finally breathe but was still in pain from the bumps. The road turned back to gravel for about 10 miles as we finished off the hills. Hit the bathroom at the end of the gravel, a rock, cause the bathroom was disgusting and had some food. So good. Descended once more and then got to talk to Primrose on her birthday!! Happy birthday sister. Love you. Can’t wait to celebrate with you. Then we hit the wind. And we’re still about 60 miles out. I was getting pretty nervous. I cried a couple more times as I was mixed with lots of emotions. I hope my 18 year old never experiences this. Yet experiences so much more and suffers more. Me and dad rotated leading and drafting every few miles. It started to get quite chilly as we got closer to the ocean. It was exciting but still a long way out. Wind just continually got worse. I had another dinner and then got going. We stopped about every 15 and started to see tons of caribou. So epic. Also a car pulled up next to us and handed me my hat and buff that I left in the car with Kurt! So kind. As we got closer, I got more nervous. I didn’t know if we could make it. Eventually we did. A rather underwhelming end. We got to the end of the dalton, took a few pics and then went to the hotel. Met Mike, got a shower, put on clean clothes and the first time I put on a new shirt for 37 days! So wonderful. Got some rest. One more blog to go. Thanks for your patience :)