June 9-12

Showing where we've been

Amanda, Doug and John at Zim's hotsprings outside of New Meadows Idaho. Highly recommended!


Our good Transamerica buddies from New Zealand, Heather and Jackson. We seem to run into each other about every other day. GREAT people!


Doug Cresting McKenzie Pass

John riding one of Oregon's many personalized bike racks.


June 9, 2009

We finally made it to Idaho! After days of riding through the beautiful Oregon high desert, we finally made it to the boarder. In our excitement we immediately crossed the river and started riding the wrong way towards “Hells Canyon,” an attraction we had seen advertised for 200 miles. We didn’t realize our mistake until we were deep into the canyon. It turned out to be a wonderful accident, as we had some of the best swimming to date, but we ended up having to ride back out over 6 miles.

We ended the day in Cambridge Idaho, a small town of 300 or so people with not much going on. Two older gents talked us up at the hardware store in the early afternoon. They kept the conversation fun until politics came up. The older fellow started out “I’ll bet you’re those types who voted for OBAAAMA……..we’re seein more and more ‘O them liberals out here every year.” After hashing out our political differences we decided to keep the conversation somewhat more PC, and stuck to the scenery and “small town” vibe. We camped in the town’s park for free, but not before hitting up the local bar. We got some stares from the locals as we came in wearing skin tight neon spandex at 11oclock at night. The initial tension was alleviated when we explained our story, and the $1.50 beers were flowing freely. I’ve never been in a bar where I would feel financially comfortable buying the entire bar a round before, but it would be NO problem here.

June 10, 2009

This afternoon we crossed the “45th parallel, which is the halfway point between the equator and the north pole.” Combine that with a change to mountain-time and it really feels like we are making some progress. Nick’s bike speedo shows that we are 827 miles into the trip – its flying by! Right now we are camped just a few miles outside of New Meadows, Idaho at a place called Zims hot springs. Their Olympic-sized pools are filled with 95 to 104 degree water were a welcome retreat for our weary bones. We realized it’s been 10 days since we have taken a day break and have found this to be a wonderful place to stop. Amazing taco’s for dinner, a hot shower and a killer half hour sunset to end the day on. This is the life. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

June 12, 2009

Its been rain rain rain for two days now, but nothing can suppress the beauty of the Idaho Sawtooth mountains. We’ve been happy to find that rain-riding is really not all that bad. The key is to keep moving, as you only really get cold when you stop. This afternoon’s 65 mile ride was almost all downhill, running alongside of the Salmon river. The waterway lived up to its name, as literally hundreds of fishermen were crowded around the banks trying their best to yank out the huge salmon swimming in the rushing water. There were places so crowded that small shantytowns of moterhomes had popped up to sustain the group. John’s perpetual attempt’s to catch a fish with a large sharpened stick never fails to amuse me. Today he seems to have moved his river-based attention to gold panning, which is equally fun. :-)

We decided to camp out in White Bird, Idaho tonight, right at the base of the gnarly “Old White Bird Hill Road.” We figured tomorrow’s fresh legs would help get us up the 9 mile, 2500 foot elevation gain in the morning.

We’re once again camped out for free in the town’s small city park, next to a babbling brook, and across the street from the “Silver Dollar Saloon + restaurant.” The locals are cracking us up, trying to remember our names, and telling us about the town. The first sentence we heard coming in was “Watch out for the woman with big boobs, she’s trouble!” Turns out she’s the town’s matriarch of sorts, who was our waitress, cook, bartender and town-guide. We had a yummy dinner of $5 burgers and 75 cent ‘pop’ (soda). The barback casually strolled over to our table as we were finishing dinner and nonchalantly cracked open four Keystone light cans and dropped them off at the table. “You all better come back and sing some karaoke with us later!” As we chatted we found out that there is an annual bike race called “Just for the Hill of it” which goes up the grade we are riding tomorrow morning. What timing! Apparently the best time in the race’s ten year history is 57 minutes bottom to top. I’m gonna try to beat the record while towing 50 pounds of gear behind me. :-) GREAT people here! We’ve been invited back to the bar to sing Friday nigh karaoke with the locals. We’ve been informed that “We got no stage, you can just go on ‘head and sing from your barstool.” WE LOVE THIS TOWN.