We are taking an early Sabbath today in Riggins, ID at a comfy motel while we wait out some dreary weather. We already spent yesterday biking through the dreariness and decided we’d had enough. Our morning yesterday started off like most others. We spent our first night in ID with Bob and Leslie and regretted we couldn’t chat longer with them.
I would like to take a moment to mention that 3 of our 4 hosts thus far have had some background in English. As we are trudging down the road, Josh is exuding all his vast knowledge on the workings of mother nature, while my degree has served us little benefit. (But don’t for one second think that a degree in English studies is useless and has no job market; I have a rant all prepared if you need convincing.) Thus far I have only been able to comment on dialect for all of 5 miles. But of course my degree has offered stimulating conversation with our hosts. Bob is an English teacher, and after talking with him I realized I needed to be very intentional in looking for ways to make literature more applicable. After all, come August I’ll be working with students in my masters program. So my new challenge while daydreaming on the road is to somehow integrate literature into our biking day. If I can do that I think I can apply literature to anything. My first plan is to recite stories to Josh to distract us from the looming hill. This theory worked great the other day while we climbed “cardiac hill” (so called by locals) and I summarized Adventures In Odyssey episodes.
Anyway, back to the worst day of our trip. We left our hosts and saw the misty weather in front of us, but we weren’t begrudging the clouds yet while going down the road in a little sun pocket. We biked into the rain clouds a little ways then pulled off to put on the rain gear. Later we realized that if you are damp before you put on the rain gear, you will be damp for the whole day. Right after we wrestled on our gear my bike made a funny noise as I shoved off down the road … we had our first flat. Josh changed it in the rain, I felt like a surgical nurse as I handed him tools. We got back on the road again to enjoy 40 miles in the rain on primarily uphill terrain. After our late lunch the clouds had moved on and we hoped to get a relaxing 30 miles of mostly down hill. This was not so. There were many more grumbles going down the foothill than up. We should have easily been coasting down at 25 mph but instead were peddling hard to maintain 15, even just 13, mph against the headwind.
We finally rolled into Riggins at about 7:30 for a total of about 11 hours on the road and 83 miles conquered. We checked the weather and found that today was going to be much the same so we decided to switch our day off. The weather for the next week looks quite promising so we will be off to Grangeville, ID tomorrow which sits atop a 3,000 ft climb.
One last little note for those interested in wildlife out on this side of the Mississippi. Leslie was telling us about the game bird chukar which was introduced into this cliff land area from the Middle East for hunting. They have pretty, white and grey stripes on their wings and would rather walk than fly. We got to see one up close behind our motel room and will hopefully remember its distinctive call tomorrow on the road.
Jake Report:
Miles: 83.2, Time on bike: 7 hrs 31 min, average: 11, weather: morning rain- afternoon headwind, terrain: rolling hills
Crossed OR and ID border
I would like to take a moment to mention that 3 of our 4 hosts thus far have had some background in English. As we are trudging down the road, Josh is exuding all his vast knowledge on the workings of mother nature, while my degree has served us little benefit. (But don’t for one second think that a degree in English studies is useless and has no job market; I have a rant all prepared if you need convincing.) Thus far I have only been able to comment on dialect for all of 5 miles. But of course my degree has offered stimulating conversation with our hosts. Bob is an English teacher, and after talking with him I realized I needed to be very intentional in looking for ways to make literature more applicable. After all, come August I’ll be working with students in my masters program. So my new challenge while daydreaming on the road is to somehow integrate literature into our biking day. If I can do that I think I can apply literature to anything. My first plan is to recite stories to Josh to distract us from the looming hill. This theory worked great the other day while we climbed “cardiac hill” (so called by locals) and I summarized Adventures In Odyssey episodes.
Anyway, back to the worst day of our trip. We left our hosts and saw the misty weather in front of us, but we weren’t begrudging the clouds yet while going down the road in a little sun pocket. We biked into the rain clouds a little ways then pulled off to put on the rain gear. Later we realized that if you are damp before you put on the rain gear, you will be damp for the whole day. Right after we wrestled on our gear my bike made a funny noise as I shoved off down the road … we had our first flat. Josh changed it in the rain, I felt like a surgical nurse as I handed him tools. We got back on the road again to enjoy 40 miles in the rain on primarily uphill terrain. After our late lunch the clouds had moved on and we hoped to get a relaxing 30 miles of mostly down hill. This was not so. There were many more grumbles going down the foothill than up. We should have easily been coasting down at 25 mph but instead were peddling hard to maintain 15, even just 13, mph against the headwind.
We finally rolled into Riggins at about 7:30 for a total of about 11 hours on the road and 83 miles conquered. We checked the weather and found that today was going to be much the same so we decided to switch our day off. The weather for the next week looks quite promising so we will be off to Grangeville, ID tomorrow which sits atop a 3,000 ft climb.
One last little note for those interested in wildlife out on this side of the Mississippi. Leslie was telling us about the game bird chukar which was introduced into this cliff land area from the Middle East for hunting. They have pretty, white and grey stripes on their wings and would rather walk than fly. We got to see one up close behind our motel room and will hopefully remember its distinctive call tomorrow on the road.
Jake Report:
Miles: 83.2, Time on bike: 7 hrs 31 min, average: 11, weather: morning rain- afternoon headwind, terrain: rolling hills
Crossed OR and ID border