Baker, CA

Finally in California!! We all definitely started realizing how close we were at this point and we all were buzzing with excitement to get to that final border. Our last border. It was so crazy to think about that we only had one more state to cross before getting to the ocean. I'll never forget how long it felt to make it the 8 miles to California with Gaurang, Charlie, Maddie, and Colleen. When we were about half a mile away from the border, Charlie started doing the speech from the Lord of the Rings about how we will fight today and not back down and when he was like "we will fight!!", we all sprinted to the sign, screaming at the top of our lungs. For some reason, I got so emotional during this and felt on the verge of crying - possibly because I was just so excited! We took about 30 minutes to take pictures and then we made our way to Baker California. 55 miles of this ride was spent on Death Valley Road so you can imagine how difficult, hot and miserable it was. Our Death Valley ride was real! We dipped down to 400 feet above sea level and crossed through salt flats. After that, the road stayed straight and directly into the wind for 20 miles. It really wasn't an easy ride. Also, the host we were staying at, the AC in the building wasn't working when we got there and it took 4 hours for it to finally cool off so we were just hot all day! Luckily, we were able to go to the high school there and swim in the pool. Without that pool, I think we all would have gotten heat stroke. That night, we had a family meeting and that was also the night that my bestie, Colleen started officially dating Greg <3.