The Meat and potatoes (or Juicy stuff for the vegetable folk)

It was not easy for me to get this far, and in this post I hope to convey a little bit of the feelings and thoughts that almost stopped this ride short. Also, I'm sorry this and the past post are so long, I just don't have much time to make them any shorter.
A stomach full of butterflies is the best way to describe how I felt when my brother was pulling out from the campgrounds in Lee Vining. I was really in it, and I was completely on my own. He left me with the advice of taking this journey one step at a time, and I could never explain how much that helped me. I was a nervous wreck, and I needed to get on the road to turn that energy into something productive. Over the first day of biking, I talked to a few people about my ride, and it felt terrible. Saying I was heading for Vancouver, and not knowing if I could make over the next day's mountain pass, made me really question what I was getting myself into. They must have been laughing at me behind their interested smiles and nods, as I surely would have been in their position. But maybe I hid my concerns well enough. I wanted out more than anything. My parents got the worst of it, and I could never thank them enough for helping me get over the first bit.
It took me about 4 hours to get up and over Monitor pass, that monster climb I will never forget on the second day. Around every winding turn was another snaking road, leading me from rocky banks to dry treeless foothills through forested switchbacks to a landscape of snow and wind. I felt much better after that summit, knowing nothing I would approach from then on would compare.
I was wrong, because the winds the next day were so bad I had to walk by bike up some of the way over Luther pass which leads into Lake Tahoe. Please keep in mind my bike weighs nearly 60 pounds with all the gear on it. Later that day, the rain came in full force, and it didn't take long for it to turn into snow. I was back in January and was not prepared. I really could have used gloves, but then again, nothing compares to the cold fingers felt during the March mornings of crew on the Potomac. The next day it was still very cold but also very clear, and I had a beautiful ride along Lake Tahoe and then Northwest to Truckee and then Sierraville. Finally, the ride from Sierraville to Greenville was equally beautiful and through patches of rain I rode 70 miles to meet Susie.
In the beginning, I wanted nothing more than for a pickup to just stop and ask if I needed a ride. I would have said just take me as far north as you are going, and I'd of been one happy camper. But not one stopped, and I am glad they didn't. I am also glad my thumb never made it up in the air either. I just kept going, one step at a time. And I got through it.
So I say I wanted to experience the unexpected. I have. And I didn't expect any of it, including the insanely immense feelings of loneliness and cold, of a sunburned face and relatively not sore butt. I really didn't expect how few bikers I would be seeing, though. Except after finishing my riding on Friday, I saw exactly 0 bike tourers along the whole route, over the whole week. I talked to one biker at the base of Monitor pass who was training for the Death race.
And nothing on my bike has broken, yet, but one other crucial piece has; my video camera. It literally just stopped working while filming my ride down from Monitor pass. I really hope I am able to still come away from this with some kind of a visual story. We will see. That is all I have for now, hopefully this all is conveying a little bit of this journey so far, and from now on I'll try my best to keep them more concise and frequent. That's the plan, and it'll probably go wrong.