June 26
Tuesday, June 26
Boise ID to Mountain Home, ID 51 miles
Giving the butts a day off the saddle and
everyone was ready to ride again. Easy
ride today. Had a great tail wind all
the way into Mountain Home, Idaho. Saw
several signs to the US Air Force
Base located here. It is 10 miles out of town. We rode past a park that had an F-15 fighter
jet - Pretty impressive piece of air
craft.
Got on the road today at 7 AM. We turned off the busy streets of downtown
Boise and head out of town. A couple of
bikes right behind me saw 2 bucks in a school yard. I just missed seeing them.
Darn near got lost at the 7 mile turn.
I was so impressed with the dam on the river that I missed a turn. A few of us finally figured out the our computers were showing we had gone over 8 miles.
Oops! Turned around and found
the turn.
We aren’t out of rattle snake country
yet. I counted 19 rattlesnakes
today! Dead ones but nevertheless they
still give me the “willies”. We had to
travel on the 10 foot wide berm of Interstate 84 for twenty miles. Those snakes
just come right up out of the grasslands on to the road – some don’t make it
very far.
When we were coming out of Boise we went
for several miles on a bike path that ran next to the highway. I saw lots of quail birds. They were funny trying to play some sort of
game with me by running on the path about fifteen feet ahead of me.
It was great to have a short easy ride
just over 50 miles. I got to Mountain
Home by 11:30. At the edge of town, I
stopped at the Rattlesnake Steakhouse for lunch. What a delightful interesting restaurant. One of our bikers carries a video camera and
she video taped this place. It had a
real old time early days Western Theme and décor. Lots of terrific old West antiques. The booths in one section were made to be covered wagons with a
table in the center. Scoops Ice Cream
Parlor was connected to the restaurant.
They had the best shakes you ever could dream about.
Stopping for lunch
killed some time but I still got into the Best Western before the room was
ready. Most everyone went to the
luggage pick up area – opened up and pulled out the bathing suits and went for
the pool and patio and the whirlpool.
Today I should be
meeting the new roommate who is joining in the ride from this point.
Saw lots of tubes
being patched tonight. Lots of flats
today. Seems when we ride the
Interstate, it is easy to run over small pieces of wire debris. I lucked out today.
Kim had a mishap today. He was pulling up to the motel and reaching
for his camera to take a picture. He
swerved into some gravel and did a slo-mo to the pavement. Ouch!