Day 13: Onset to Barrington, Miles 367 to 412

IWe had a nice, intentionally late start to the day, since we were planning on a later arrival to Kathleen’s. We rolled out of our tents to a delicious breakfast prepared by Uncle Jeff. He contemplated making us corn bread or banana bread, but ultimately decided on banana bread in a cast iron skillet. It was warm and delicious! He also made us perfect omelettes and we ate Grandma Joyce’s fruit salad. Kelly kept commenting on how much she liked the grapes.

We made our way out around 10:30, and once we made it past the shade of the porch, it really hit us that it was approaching the hottest part of the day. We got a good 10 miles in or so until our first stop, though. We ate First Lunch, which was cold cut sandwiches from Uncle Jeff/just plain cold cuts for gluten-free Kelly. It was honestly a questionable choice to keep meat in my front rack pouch on a hot day, but it ended up working out and being a great lunch.

Not too long after we got going again, MK led us off the road onto the grass and immediately laid on the ground. When she moves her trunk too suddenly, she gets very tachycardic, and she was having one of those episodes. We were so confused and concerned but MK was okay.

We continued in our way, contemplated stopping at Wendy’s for a frosty, decided not to, and kept going. Eventually after a long hill, we stopped under a shady tree near an alpaca farm for Second Lunch. We were about halfway done at that point, and although we were really feeling the heat of the sun, we were refreshed after our break.

We decided to get our afternoon snack at Sarah’s grandparents favorite restaurant, which is a really cool floating dock on the water with live music. By the time we got there, we were tired and hangry. The server told us there was no shaded seating available, which made us reevaluate how much we wanted to eat there. Sarah came up with the idea to get ice cream from a somewhat nearby grocery store, which was the perfect solution! We walked in and laid eyes on a watermelon and knew we needed it. Kelly and I pickled over whether it would be smart to buy a pack of six Klondike bars and ultimately decided yes. We crushed the Klondike bars easily on the walk back to the water and I cut the melon into quarters with MK’s giant pocketknife. The shade and food slowly brought us back to life, and after a good long rest and plenty of sunscreen for Kelly, we felt ready to get back out there and make it to Kathleen’s!

We had a pleasant ride the rest of the way and noticed that it was cooler after our lengthy break. Once we made it to Kathleen’s, we collapsed on the cushy grass and decided we were too tired to make it to the beach a couple blocks away. Kelly ordered us some Thai and we took hose showers while we waited for it to come.

We got six containers of delicious food, including curry chicken skewers, yellow curry, green curry, pad Thai, and mango fried rice. It was amazing but since it was so much food, we were afraid that we might end up with leftovers for the first time!

Kathleen made it home as we were picking at our dinner, and we had a good time chatting with her as we finished our meal. (Don’t worry, there weren’t leftovers!) It was a very warm but great day and we loved staying at Kathleen’s!

-Talia