Day 9. Boise to Mountain Home Idaho. After a rest day yesterday, it was back to the ride today. Our route today took us through the same valley we've been riding in the past few days. Again, not tremendously scenic, but open, dry, and windblown in an Old West kind of way. The valley we were in must be 30 or so miles across. We didn't have much in the way of climbing today, but what we did have was the wind.
Before I get to the details of today's ride, I have to report that Wonderboy got a new brain, a massage, and new eyes yesterday at George's bike shop in Boise. Wonderboy's new brain is a Garmin 500 Edge bike computer. This puppy is state of the art. It has speed, distance, average speed, cadence, heart rate, elevation, grade climb/descent, and much much more. It is GPS based and is nuclear powered (actually, it isn't nuclear powered). It does everything but ride the bike for me (I wish it did that too). Wonderboy's new eyes are a new Mirrcycle mirror so I can see what's coming up behind me. He also got a quick once-over safety check. All is good with Wonderboy.
We rode 53 miles today to Mountain Home Idaho. We had a big tailwind and averaged over 30km/hour. We got to town as early as we have arrived anywhere yet. I had a nice high calorie lunch at Wendy's (no Frostie though, but the day ain't over yet) and enjoyed every bite. I don't really know why they call this place Mountain Home. There aren't a lot of mountains nearby, and it doesn't look like it is home to many people other than a US Air Force base. We asked someone at the Wendy's where town was, and he said that past the Walmart next door there wasn't really anything worth seeing. OK. Talk about hometown pride! We rode another large chunk of today (over 10 miles) on the interstate (I-84 to be precise). But this section of interstate was actually outstanding. It must have been recently repaved and a rainstorm that just blew through here yesterday must have swept all the debris off the road. With the tailwind today and the light interstate traffic, it was a pleasure to ride on (I can't believe I'm saying that – it was a pleasure to ride on the interstate)!
For 10 or so miles today we rode with Rick (in the orange cycling jersey). Rick is a 62 year old semi-retired engineer. Man, can he ride a bike. Not only did he keep up with us young'uns, he led the line at a pace that was hard to keep up with. I am amazed at how fast some of the people on this ride who are older than me are. We have one rider named Howard who is 79 years old, and while he may not be the first one in at the end of the day, he is certainly far from the last. Imagine being 79 years old and doing this ride (not to be indelicate, but that's older than you Eleanor, and pretty close to you Muriel!). Simply incredible.
Lastly, Katie heard about my Duchess having the world's most awesome nickname when she met her on Skype yesterday and wants a nickname of her own. Since I traditionally have been the bestower of nicknames in my family and have come up with some pretty good ones over the years for the neighborhood kids (the boy, TBOB, Laurenofsky, Satan's Little Helper, Spencer for Hire, La Femme Nikita, Mitchmeister, VJ, Logan's Run, Brad Man, etc.) I thought I'd give Katie a nickname.
Let's see...what would work...how about, consistent with today's blog post title Gone with the Wind...that her nickname could be Katie Scarlett (like Scarlett O'Hara was called by her father in Gone With the Wind)? Let's see what she thinks of it.
On to today's mail:
Allan from Toronto writes "You're on a small bike ride (in response to my Facebook status "Mark went for a bike ride")". Well Allan (wait for it), maybe it's small to you, but its big to us (MISTYBIBTU)!
That's the only mail from today. Boo-frickety-hoo. I guess all of you are just going about your normal lives. Actually, that makes a fair bit of sense when you think about it.
Useful links for you:
SO COOL: CHECK OUT MY STATS FROM MY NEW GARMIN!!!!!!
This is Joe's blog:
Trip journal and photos by our tour leader Mike Munk:
http://www.americabybicycle.com/BAMA/BAMA/North/North.html
This link is data from Jeff's bike computer showing stats from today's ride – very cool:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38042514
This link is Baltimore Mark's blog:
http://marksrideacrossamerica.blogspot.com/
And this is Katie's blog:
http://blog-by-bike.blogspot.com/
I have never seen so many exclamation points in my life (and you KNOW how I feel about exclamation points). You seem to be having an amazing time. That, or you've been replaced by an excitable clone. We love the blog.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess by now you've heard about the demonstrations, the earthquake and the takedown that occurred 35 feet from the front door of the office. We await the plague of locusts!
I am running 12 miles tomorrow morning so I have to sing off, BUT I'm thinking of naming my running shoes. Let me know your thoughts. So far the leading contenders are "Left" and "Right".
Over and out boss.
Karen