Everyone warned us that there was a huge climb over a pass out of Lava Springs so we got out (somewhat reluctantly) right after breakfast.
The climb was twelve miles of up but since it was early, the sun wasn’t merciless and we made it up just fine.

After that it was 2.5 miles of 5% grade down (just like the yellow-orange sign said) and for me, that’s the scary part. Over and into the shoulder of the road at that downhill speed can really do you some damage. The climbs can be brutal but no chance you’re going to hurt yourself on one.
Anyhow I break a lot in the downhill, Sarita flies and no one gets hurt.
It’s always amazing to me how the landscape on the other side of the pass always looks completely different.

A little more than twenty miles puts us in Soda Springs where we make our usual grocery store stop. Or not so usual.

I love that all of these were over the pet food aisle.

After the grocery store we went to the geyser which is carbonated naturally. In the early 1900s people were drilling for warm water and tapped into this majorly explosive source. They could not use the water for anything as it was so heavily laden with minerals. The geyser was so powerful that soon after its discovery the Secretary of the Interior (US Gov’t) contacted the city of Soda Springs because their geyser was upsetting the schedule of “Old Faithful” which was world famous. Therefore Soda’s geyser is now artificially regulated and goes off every hour on the hour.
We were there for it.

We knew what we were there for and we even had a watch but I was shocked almost to the point of screaming when the thing went off. It was so powerful and 70 feet high!

There was a 4th of July Fair going on and we bought a homemade chocolate chip cookie bigger than a salad plate and a paperback novel for only a dollar. We passed on the quilt raffle and continued our way under the now hot sun of 6,000 feet plus.

We rode on another thirty miles with no shade so we stopped by a tree on someone’s yard and ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had made at our Lava Springs all-to-can-eat buffet breakfast.
We did another surprise summit before the town of Georgetown, Idaho. I don’t know why the photo is so hazy. Perhaps the heat?

We were very tired by then and hoping for some cool drink in Georgetown even though it only had a population of 200.
We came upon this building there that had “EAT” in big letters on it’s roof but when we got closer, it was closed and for sale. This happens to us several times a day.

Finally we made it to Montpelier and there was nothing there either even though it’s name on the map was in bigger print as the town’s huge population was 2,100.

We couldn’t find the KOA so we called. It was 2 miles off the highway and I called to ask if there was any food there and the lady said there was food, like breakfast burritos and pizza. She made it sound like food. We went the 2 miles and found the KOA and the “food” was packages (of chemicals) in the freezer box ready to be microwaved.
We rode back to the grocery store and got food. As it was 4th of July and there were red white and blue decorations everywhere.
There are always lots of flags around these parts and usually a black MIA/POW flag flying with them. There are also many yellow ribbons tied on trees. If there are no trees, then the ribbons are tied on posts.

The police were out in force in Montpelier giving tickets to drivers for precious little. When we were biking back from the grocery store we saw them pull over the people in the tent site next to ours.
For the last two weeks we have seen countless fireworks shacks on street corners but now that the 4th is here there’s a $500 fine for setting them off as the unusually high temperatures and winds are making fires that are demolishing homes.
Sarita and I did our clothes in the laundry as usual. To save time, we changed quickly in the laundry room as everyone else was at the campground 4th’s activity. We locked the door as we did this and then went back to the site. It happened then that Sarita couldn’t find her cell phone so we went back to the laundry room to find it but we had locked it shut. We went back to the office to tell the lady who didn’t know what food was that we had locked the door by mistake and even confessed that it had happened as we were changing. She advised that we should never do that as there is a surveillance camera in the laundry whose images are shown in the office!
Why have a surveillance camera in a small room with two washers and two dryers and one sink?
In the bathroom there was 24/7 CNN news program on a screen in the wall!
It was a weird KOA that had a sign at the entrance (pretty much in the middle of nowhere) that said, “No public restrooms” as if you couldn’t “go” anywhere around there. I was looking forward to getting out of there.
We went to sleep in the tent listening to private fireworks.

We hung out here for the day at the  Lava Springs Mineral Bath Inn. It is a very old place and not kept up too well. It’s ten bucks more than the campsite and has everything in one place so we are down with it.

It’s sort of like belonging to a club. Room comes with an all you can eat for breakfast which is where we met the clan which is this huge white multigenerational family staying here for a family reunion. We pass them here and there around town which is six blocks of “Main Street”. We share a bathroom across the hall.

All the towns we’ve been in have their initials marked on a hill above, this is just the first time I’ve documented it.
There is native American influenced splashed around here and there as well.

The mineral baths pools, of which there are many of different temperature and sizes, are super relaxing. They have lots of minerals in them, those being manganese, calcium bicarbonate, sodium, zinc, sulfate, potassium, magnesium and fluoride.

The other BIG thing here is to “float” down the river in an innertube

When we were having lunch at the taco truck (after being told there was no Mexican food in town), we encountered a guy who had very badly scraped his foot so that clued us in about needing shoes when tubing down the quickly moving river.
We rented our innertubes, which were huge, and walked up to the put-in point of the river, resigned to soaking our specialized pricey bike shoes.
There is a reason you sign a piece of paper with lots of small print absolving the tube people from anything that may happen on the river. The lady explained that this is not a theme park tide but a real river with rocks and trees and such. We were told since we were new at this not to go down the difficult waterfall but we were clueless and went over everything because we didn’t know any better. It was super scary and fast and I could never get the thing to point in the right direction so I was continually swirling and going over rapids backward. All in all it was fun but too scary to do more than once and we were super glad we had our shoes which dried by dinner time in the intense sun.
After the “float” we had the massages I’d scheduled for Sa and I!  My neck and upper back feel locked into a permanent biking position and I’d been hoping for a massage for a while now.
It was the best oil massage I’d ever had! and that’s saying a lot since I’m at Esalen often.
This town is a strange mixture of conservative redneck (general area) and new age (mineral baths) and we’ve enjoyed it tremendously.
Here is another shot of the square scoop ice team shop. By the way, you never say “soda” in Idaho. It’s “pop”.

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.

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.

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.