Beauty in the deceiving emptiness

WOW. I'll do my best here, but it is an impossible task to sum up the last couple days in words and even in pictures. Ever since we left the Cascade Mountains from Leavenworth, WA the landscape here has become overwhelmingly more barren and brown. Which makes sense now that we are riding through the northern part of the Sonoran Desert. But even in the barren, what one might call a wasteland, it is incredibally beautiful. Life almost seems more amazing here then else where, simply because it is so very dry. Of course as irony would have it, we got our first day of riding in the rain here in the Sonoran Desert while headed for the town of Sunnyside, WA.
We've been riding alongside the Yakima River the last couple days and it is quite amazing what they have done here. Irrigation canals run all throughout the river valley here, feeding the countless orchards and vineyards that line the Yakima River. We even rode through the apple juice capitol of the world, Selah, WA. On our 4th day I believe, we rode through the Yakima Canyon. Which was simply one the most absolutely stunning places I've been to. the way the river is lined with viberant greens, which is quite suddenly surrounded by an imensity of brown. The canyon cliffs sore out alongside the river, with trails winding up them from the Longhorned goats that live here. Yesterday we stayed our journey along the Yakima through some more cliff land. Except these cliffs were different, they weren't along the river but much farther back and made of lava rock. But still beautiful. Some friends and myself decided to go climbing up one of the cliffs and boy, was the view from on top spectacular, we could see for miles down both sides of the river valley.
The climate here is unbelieveable. Yesterday as we biked from Sunnyside to Kennewick the temperature was hovering around 40C, the thermometre on my bike even read 42.5C at one point!! Keep in mind there is virtually no humidity here, which also means that water is just sucked out of you at an incredible rate.
We are now resting for the weekend in Kennewick, WA and are camped out alongside the Columbia River, which is very cold yet refreshing. We also had our Celebration Rally today, which was very nice. We where also treated to music from a group of a half dozen refugees from Burma, they were very good! Anywho, it is time I should go. As I said earlier, one cannot explain this trip in words and not even in pictures. But pictures help explain it a litte. If you would like, I have a lot of pictures posted already on my Facebook page, you can check them out.
Peace&GodBless
MattRekman, thankyou all for your continued support and prayers!

flat tire count: 53 at last count (I have had only two flats, both yesterday. One was from a tiny rock and another from a horrible thorn called a Goat's Head. You'll probably hear more about them, as they are the arch enemy of cyclists).