Day 15 July 2, 2001

Cle Elum, WA to Issaquah, WA

84.04 miles
15.09 average speed
5:33.58 travel time
5:45am departed
2:00pm arrived
1006.52 total trek miles

            I can't make fun of us for not waking up early anymore because this morning we woke up at four-thirty. That early start enabled us to summit Snoqualmie Pass by nine-thirty and make it within five miles of the Issaquah exit a little before noon.

Now this bone-chilling anecdote is for all the mothers that are reading: Coming down the pass we learned a lesson that I'm sure our mothers taught us many times but that we had since forgotten. Though our excuse for forgetting is not good, it does explain our behavior, for anyone who has climbed a hill on a bike knows that once at the top it's all downhill. After climbing for so long, you see the long, steep slope bend out of sight for what you hope is forever and it takes some of your reason away to be presented with such a proposal. Usually - and, Moms, I do mean usually - our mind quickly recaptures the reason it temporarily lost and we stay, as a result, reasonably together. This time, however, the escaped sense resisted arrest and we opened up our bikes to that fantastic slope with abandon. After several miles of uninterrupted and unadulterated speed, which was apparently fast enough to overtake our escaped reason, we wisely decided to stop and regroup. The stopping was easy enough but the regrouping was only partial, since at the top of the five-mile hill we had just descended, trudged our beloved and stalwart navigator, Jake, his tire recently flattened but his spirit was unbroken. His friends had deserted him to follow their speed-demon lifestyles and he, without a friend and without a pump, tried to fix that busted tire but without success (one can only blow so hard!).

            Luckily, we had a friend with us, Ben Kauffman, who took it upon him to ride back up to see what had happened to our Jake. Though we soon learned the nature of his delay, the experience more than reaffirmed the importance of the Buddy System and in the evening of that same day we signed into law the EB Trek Biking Buddy System as the First Amendment to the Constitution of EB Trek, which passed with a 3-2 majority. It hereby entitles all EB Trekkers to not only a buddy but also a buddy with a pump.

            Enough. We arrived safely, though tired and hungry, to my Grandpa's house in Issaquah. We soaked in the hot tub and ate extreme amounts of food. What more could you ask for?