Monthly Archives: June 2012

June 30,Day 12, Fairfield to Arco

Sa and I started out early but the day ahead seemed hard. We had 90 miles ahead of us on a road with absolutely no shade. The only shade available was that from our bicycle panniers.

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It was over a hundred degrees and it all just seemed too hard.
We stopped at a stream in order to break up the day with some fun. The river was running fast with snow melt and we hung out there a while and it was fun.

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After that we made it to Picabo (pronounced peek-a-boo) which was one very cool store. We hung out there a while avoiding the heat and waiting for it to cool down before we started the next 43 miles which included the “Craters of the Moon” (black lava on both sides of the road) strip.
That was super weird. A long mostly flat stretch of nothing but deset and black rock. There was nothing else. Not even telephone wires. It was still a hundred when we were going through there even though it was 8 pm!
Because it was flat we got through there pretty fast and made it to our KOA campground destination by nine where we took our second swim of the day!.

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June 29, Day 11, Mountain Home to Fairfield

The day started out a bit slow with a flat tire from my wipe out the day before which we fixed easily. As I was locking my bike against the post, to get my morning cup of coffee, an entire bus load of teenagers on a Christian field trip went into the coffee shop before me. “Oh my fucking God” I say under my breath and then a hand places itself on my shoulder. I turn around and a male twenty-something counselor type says, “Don’t worry, you can go ahead of us”. Thankfully, I do. The sign on the tip jar says, “If you tip, less children will have mullet haircuts”. I liked that.
Sa and I set out completely clueless because we no longer have our “Adventure Cycling” elevation maps. Hwy 20, the same small road we were on in Oregon, was a straight red line on our map and it looked flat but it wasn’t. It just went up and up and up out of Mountain Home. Around each turn, we thought it would start to go down but it never did, for twenty five miles! There was a quick mile of down named “Devil’s Dip” but it only lasted one mile. Eventually, the climb did stop and 44 miles later we made it to Hill City where there was a building which was open and had a bathroom Yea! We got water!
You had to go through the saloon (which is often behind the store out here in these parts) to get to the bathroom. About six people of various ages were hanging out and talking and eating lunch. Seemed like they all enjoyed each other and that the saloon was more about being together than drinking.

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We bought an electrolyte drink from a young hip lady in skinny jeans from Britian. Like the Indian family you can’t help but wonder what brought them to the middle of nowhere.
We drank our drink outside on the bench and one of the old men in the saloon came out and he talked with us a while. He explained he was running for office and gave us each a wooden nickel. The other side said, “What’s freedom worth?” and had his name and campaign website. He was real nice and drove off in an old beat up white pick up truck.
It’s hard desert like land out here. Even if you are wearing shorts, on your feet you have cowboy boots.

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We rode on and made it to Fairfield where we camped for free in the city park. That city has the best water from public water fountains I’ve ever tasted.
We meet two kids who explained to us that winter had just ended and that it was spring and not summer yet which was why they had such good water. This didn’t make much sense but I believed them anyhow. They were very welcoming and happy.
After we set up our tent we met two nice young ladies walking with a stroller who showed us there was an owl above our tent.
He is very well camouflaged and in the middle of this picture.

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June 28, Night 10, Mountain Home

We have all fallen off our bikes more than once. A very easy way to fall off the bike is to have to stop suddenly and not be able to get out of your cleats in time. It’s awful because you KNOW you are going to fall and that second and a half seems more like ten right before you go down to hit the pavement.
A stupider and less necessary way to fall is from moving unintentionally into the gravel shoulder while trying to get a good photo as riding.

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Oh well.
I had a bruise or two from that and since the charge for the campground and the hotel with the big bathtub was almost the same we opted for the Thunderbird Hotel.
Sometimes we are just so hot and tired we can’t go even a step out of our way to get a good photo and that is why I don’t have one of the huge towering pink and blue and neon sign. Picture it as a cross between the “Ahwahnee” in Yosemite and “The Jetsons” old TV show.
The Native American imagery was present even if greatly faded on every turquoise door .
The sign on the office was a torn price of yellowed paper taped from the inside and it said, ” ring the bell and wait”.  The word “wait” was underlined three times so we waited, but for long enough we couldn’t help ringing another time.

Finally a middle aged woman answers.She is India Indian with an accent. She gives us room 21 and tells us if we want to swim we need to see the manager who will be here later. She asks us where we are from and we tell her the San Francisco bay area. She says “ahh yes . The bridge. Golden gate. Me too. I went to high school in San Francisco.” I say where? She looks confused because she’s already told me where, San francisco. Then she says “and college too” and goes on about how very very important it is to go to college and that she went. Of course we are wondering why that was so important if this is where she is.
We don’t say that but instead we agree with her  but what I am more interested in is getting ice for my bruised parts. There is a large ice machine by the wall.
“Oh yes, that. But it is not turned on.” She will turn it on and the manager will tell when there is ice.
I am good with that and Sa and I go to room 21 and then to the grocery store “Albertsons”. Mostly we live out of that store. Every day almost the same things: bagels, avocado, hummus, yogurt and grilled chicken breasts from the deli. This plus the occasional comfort food (Pepsi fountain soda and chocolate milk shakes) and power bars and nuts.
This time I also get Epsom salts for my bath!
When we get back, I go to the office and ring and WAIT. This time another Indian woman answers, apparently the other woman’s much older mother. She is wearing the same half plastic brown with a flower print apron that the other lady wore. I get the feeling that the rule is: if you are going to open the door, you are going to wear the apron.
This woman speaks not a word of English so I hold up my ice bucket and smile a lot. She smiles a lot back and shows me how to open the ice machine door. At first I am confused, the ice box is huge and I am not sure what to do; then I see in the corner a pile of little ice cubes so I gather them up, smile again and leave.
As I am waking down the outdoor corridor from 1 to 21 (there is only one other guest in a dusty orange low American sports car from the 90s), I encounter the manager who is clearly the older woman’s husband. He sees my ice bucket and asks me how I got ice in sort of a domineering way. He explains that HE is the ice man and He makes the ice and that he called our room repeatedly and there was no answer and maybe he should come in to fix the telephone. I explain we were at Albertson’s and he wants to know if we want to swim which by now we don’t. Then he asks if SHE told us about the air conditioning and I say no so he comes in and explains in detail how the blue button turns it on and the red button turns it off and he demonstrates this several times as well.
Next he explains in detail exactly where to leave the key when we go. He is clearly Papa or Grandpapa of the place and I have realized this and we have warmed up to each other. I thank him and tell him we will do it all right and are so happy to be there. To which he responds that he is so happy to have us. Our eyes meet definitely as he closes the door to our room and I realize he is Bengali.

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Shout out for the great saint guys (and gals) in the bike stores

Here’s Nick who basically boxed Noah’s bike and looked over and fine tuned up Sa’s and my bikes and took Noah to the airport for next to nothing.
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Last night I couldn’t figure out how I’d be able to trust anyone to leave Noah with and to take him to the airport but as soon as I met Nick I knew he was way more than OK. I can’t say how.

Rod in Eugene OR was extremely kind and gave us super advice, told us to loose the locks (weight) and mailed them back for us. He also just threw In a bag of screws for good measure along with sound advice.

Brad in Sisters OR cleaned and pumped up our tires and our spirits after we survived our first big summit of MacKenzie pass.

Jerry in Baker City took our three bikes and tuned them up and spent a lot of calm time trying to figure out with us how we could or couldn’t get  Noah to Missoula.

Brett at Mikes Bikes in Berkeley is our wondrous homeboy as is Charlotte at Tip Top Bile Shop in Oakland which is sponsoring Sarita so she can get PE credit for doing this bike trip. She’s also an artist !!! Yea ! Also Charlotte changed our tires to Bontragger tires which is why we have so few flats and I bought both styles of her cool shirt and both Sa and I got super cycling shorts there all at a great price. Tip Top Bike Shop is owned by Charlotte and her husband Richard who is also an artist. They met in art school and they have the coolest shop with the most artistically unique and sophisticated hip signage and she has designed the t shirt she’s wearing and a FANTASTIC bike shirt (sorry no picture) that she had made in Italy!!! Tip Top is exactly that, an over the top combo of art and cycling. Go team!

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June 28, Day 10, Noah leaves, Boise to Mountain home

Here’s Noah in the bike store as he’s staying and we’re leaving.
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And Sarita checks out the map trying to figure out how to get out of Boise going East without having to do it on an interstate.
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There was no way out but the interstate which was 40 miles. We started at 4:00 and got to Mountain Home at 6:30. We were flying in intense heat with no shade or shadows except our own..
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June 27, Day 9 Weiser to Boise ID

The ride from Weiser to Boise was mostly a flat 80 miles through beautiful farmland.
It’s like Idaho figured out what to do with all that river water running through.
We got a great camp site next to a river and did a gigantic load of laundry. We repacked everything so Noah could leave and now my load is super heavy I guess cuz of the tent and seven innertubes.
The lady in the camp site next to us is from Nevada. She is camping here while she has radiation at the hospital in Boise where her husband thinks the best neuroscience is. She looks at the river and is dressed in interesting colorful clothes. She gave us each two water bottles for our ride.
All along the way we have met with enormous well wishing and kindness from strangers.

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We are in a radically cool cafe now in Boise which is a surprisingly hip city
Complete with hot pink diners and art on utility boxes better than Berkeley’s
(soory I don’t have photos of any of that but I passed these while in intense city traffic and couldn’t do the drive by photo thing safely).
This cafe we are in is so cool that they have uncooked pasta for coffee stirrers. It gets better: They are non profit here with fantastic food and sophisticated coffee drinks. Say what? The workers are volunteers and all the profit goes to “chapel missions” in India.
The radio station playing is great and the guy who serves us our food has a seven inch tattoo on the inside of his forearm that sort of looks like a dagger and sort of looks like a cross. Goes both ways I guess.
The guys in the bike store here are especially nice. nick is especially nice and is boxing Noah’s bike for $35.00 and taking him to the airport for free.
In the Bay Area, they’ll box your bike for a hundred and go figure how you are going to get it to the airport

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june 26, Day 8.Baker City to Weiser IDAHO

Noah, in his persistence to go home, figured out that we were close to Boise Idaho and that it had an airport.
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We found a flight for $80 from Boise to Oakland, so we booked it and went to sleep after buying state maps from a truck stop.
In the middle of the night it started to rain so I jumped out of the tent and put the fly cover thing on and got the bikes and all the packs and shoes under shelter and I was hard to wake up in the morning especially as it was still raining.
We had sent back a lot of stuff from the post office in Baker City to make us lighter on the hard climbs. Noah’s rain jacket was sent as he was only riding 2 more days and as Sa had checked the average rainfall and it didn’t seem we needed it. So I set out in the rain primarily to get a good cup of coffee and also to get a rain poncho (which unfortunately will act as a sail) for Noah. There was no place open to get him a rain jacket.
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It took us a while to figure out a route. We didn’t want to do any interstate but we couldn’t make it to boise in time without it. So we finally started out around eleven on a course that involved ten miles of interstate in a seventy plus mile day.
The ride in general was easy as there were no mountains and we were on a frontage road with hardly any traffic and beautiful scenery which I am shooting with the phone from the bike.20120626-221419.jpg20120626-221501.jpg20120626-221522.jpg
We were scared to get on the interstate so we all wore yellow and had our flashing red rear lights on and took Bach’s “Rescue Remedy” drops but it wasn’t dangerous at all as the shoulder was huge. However it was unpleasant as the 18 wheelers were noisy.
Just as we were getting used to the interstate, Sarita had a flat!!

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We fixed it easily!!

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We carried on and Sa got a wasp caught in her shirt and it stung her several times!!! 😦 But she (as usual) was a hero! We contined on (on and on and on) miles upon miles and through a time change and into another state!

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Other things (day 6.5)

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In eastern Oregon, there are so few people and so much land, the silence is only broken by the sound of our wheels turning and the wind blowing through the trees. We were surprised to find that when we go under electric wires, they are making a buzzing sound. We thought maybe we were mistaken but it happened more than once.
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We pass all kinds of roads with funny names like “Telephone Road” and “Screeech Alley Loop”
And lots of others I can’t remember. We were in for sure the middle of nowhere in the forested mountains when all of a sudden there was a brown (like National Park Service brown) that said “Social Security Point”. It seemed dangerously out of place like a camouflage for the KKK or something. I have heard that OR has the largest KKK membership but why? there are no African American people here, really.
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We’ve passed through rattlesnake Creek and Murderers Creek and always there is a river running by our road. We are now by the Powder River and often go to sleep with the sound of a river running by. We are riding on back roads which is why we are hardly ever near a real town but today we are in a 9,000 person town and it feels gigantically awful and crass (although we are looking forward to the health food store and I am at a cafe where I am having the first real cup of coffee in a week).
We are hanging here as we are taking the bus to Missoula, Montana tomorrow because Noah wants to go home. It’s amazing to have some free time. When we are on the road we are doing everything as fast as we can. Taking down camp, packing, riding furious to get to our destination in daylight, then setting up camp. Now we are relaxing and it feels right. 20120625-114347.jpg

June 24, Day 6 part two

So we started out a little late 8:30ish after breakfast.
We were looking forward to what looked like a town called Austin junction after the first mountain. On the map it said it had a restaurant, a gas station, a post office and a grocery store. When we got to Austin junction it was the intersection of two streets with one store and since she was the only game in town it cost us $45.00 for three sandwiches and some power bars and cookies. Gas there was $4.90 a gallon. A. 44 cent stamp was 50 cents!
We had to eat so we had to pay.
The food lasted us over the next two mountains. It was a super hard day

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After some 70 miles and three mountains we were beat as we pulled into baker city which has as many Christian churches as San Francisco has cafes and it was Sunday so Main street was closed.
We managed to find a fantastic RV campground with a beautiful granite bathroom and shower and a super clean laundry room. We set up tent and then went to the truck corral by the interstate for dinner. Super nice waitress. Awful food. Sorry there is so much emphasis on food in this but when you are exercising full on 12 hpurs a day there is a lot of focus on sustenance and how to get it

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Noah is completely done, spent, exhausted and can’t go on. The next stretch to Missoula is way harder than what we have been doing.
Noah wants to go home. We are taking a day off in baker city to figure out a bus or something to Missoula do Noah can go home from there.
He has ridden a heroic week and his leg muscles show it