While the landscape and terrible winds managed only to degrade (think Kansas without even any trees or brush or animals), my spirits during the day actually improved. People passing cheered us on with big smiles; truck drivers honked; Danny and I stopped for lunch in a ditch (to hide from the wind) and began rationing our chocolate.  Ok, who am I kidding, we ate the whole bar--but at least not two!! We had to go 125 km more before we could buy any more bars. We ran into a group of bikers heading south--and enjoying the tailwind they were experiencing.  They stopped to offer advice and chocolate to Danny, who apparently looked as if he were battling 100km/hr headwinds. A dutch couple driving the other direction pulled over and ran across the road to us.  "Do you need anything?"  They asked.  They had done 100s of miles on bike and always stopped to check on bikers supplies and condition.

I accepted my fate for the next few days.  At least Torres del Paine, the beautfiul national park that was the very reason for my trek, was only 300 more kilometers. By Danny's estimation, that was 3 days, so I figured 5.

Somewhere along the way, I remembered to the reason I had originally considered biking.  It was time.  Time to my thoughts and to prayers.  I had the chance to finally put into practice what I had been learning and working on for the past 15 months at the Upper Room.  On a bike there aren't the distractions of life. Just you and teh road.  And out here, thats litterally ALL there is. (I took the photo on the right because I was SUPER excited to see a change in the scenery--there were mountains in the distance!!).

So I began to pray, and sing and consider what I would write.  I thought about what Pam, one of the Editors of Weavings had said about prayer in each thing you do, as you make a sandwich in the morning, or prepare food for others for example.  So the pedals, the road, the cars, each stop became part of my prayers and thoughts.  I thought a lot about all the people who had helped me get here through words of encouragement, freedom, and inspiration.  And every one of my friends and family back home in Nashville, DC and flung across the world.  It was hard not to be in a good mood at that point.  I have such incredible people behind me, and what an opportunity to just be able to sit and think about it.  I wanted to send letters of gratitude, hugs, and smiles...so hopefully some of you are reading this now...

One of my "Senior Sayings" in our high school year book was "the only girl to ever write me a love letter".  Emily posited that it was probably written by a girl as well.  Haha, yeah, I can get sappy about these things...

Finally Danny and I encountered some hills, though hills like I'd never seen.  These hills didn't flow into each other, but strangely jutted out of the ground in continuous rows. It turns out that these are known as and caused by glaciers as the random informational sign told us.

Well I've spent over an hour on this post, so thats all for now...