Rizz, we found out, is short for Richard. He gets something like 4 months vacation a year, since he lives in Australia and has had the same government job for 15 years. I’m thinking of immigrating. We had great fun chatting with him, making fun of his accent while he made fun of our tan lines.

South Dakota

Klaus and Nathalie

On the 5th, Stewart, Rizz, Dee, and I visited Wind Cave and Sylvan Lake in South Dakota by car, saving Dee and me a couple of days worth of biking. The next day we biked out of Newcastle into South Dakota to Jewel Cave then to Custer and stayed in Bedrock City, a little themepark devoted to The Flintstones. We arrived too late for the actual park area, so we check it out in the morning, fulfillng our kitch quota for the day. But, of course, we’re not content with just meeting a quota. We go above and beyond. So we visited the Woodcarving Museum also in Custer.

hanging with Fred and Barney

Bedrock City

That afternoon, we checked out the Crazy Horse Memorial. When completed, Crazy Horse will be the biggest monument in the world, bigger than the largest pyramid in Egypt. It’s a huge endeavor and is all privately funded; they’re refusing any government money. The memorial is for all Native Americans, to show the world that they have something to be proud of, that they have heroes to look up to, and to right some of the injustice done to their people. This memorial is so deeply emotional that I can’t help but not be impressed with Mt. Rushmore.

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore about an hour before the lighting ceremony. It was grossly patriotic. Going from Crazy Horse to Rushmore, never have I felt so much shame and pride at the same time. Since we had time to kill and we were starving, we ate at their cafe. After we had sat down, I noticed that a lot of people were leaving tons of unfinished/overpriced food behind. How American. I decided to scrounge. A day ago I had told my bro about scrounging.

Crazy Horse

Mt. Rushmore

At Reed College, where I went for undergrad, we had people, known as scroungers, who would wait at the place in the cafeteria where people bring their trays after they were done eating and eat any leftovers before they were thrown away. Back in its heyday, Reed was on a meal system instead of a point system, where you could grab as much food as you wanted per meal. Students inevitably grabbed more than they could eat. Meanwhile, some students were either too cheap or too poor to buy their own meals. Thus scrounging. It got so common place that ettiquette guidelines were written for the student handbook; things like, ‘thou shall ask for permission before grabbing food from someone’s tray,’ and, ‘thou shall inform any scrounger that thou art sick if thou hast any communicable disease.’ It is said that the ultimate trial of a scrounger is if he or she can successfully scrounge at McDonald’s for an entire meal without getting ill. Scrounging has since been introduced to many graduate schools by former Reedies.

And so we scrounged. It was easy at this particular cafe because people would get up from their tables and not bus them. So Dee and I would raid empty tables before the professional bussers got to them. In addition to the spaghetti dinner and chili dog we bought, we made out with a side of mashed pos, a couple of dinner rolls, half a chicken, and a side salad. All of it, with the exception of the chicken, was completely untouched. Why do people buy food and then not even try it? What I really wanted was a side of corn, but I was too full by the time we spotted one.

Mt. Rushmore all lit up was pretty cool. But now we had a problem; it was dark and downhill to Keystone with no streetlamps along the highway. We didn’t feel like dying. Then Dee remembered, ‘you can camp anywhere in the Black Hills if something something something.’ He looked at me and said, ‘we’re something something something!’ So we were thinking of just camping in the parking lot but instead took the advice of a park ranger that we go back the way we came for one mile then campout at a trail head.

That night it became extremely muggy and we were having a hard time getting comfortable being all sticky. We made a couple of fans out of the Mt. Rushmore flier I had in my pocket and fanned ourselves to sleep.

In the morning we were going to buy breakfast at the same cafe, but the line was so long that we scrounged our complete meal. The horrified look on that mother was priceless. God Bless America.

Journey Museum

On our way to Rapid City, we checked out Sittng Bull Cave (they let us in for free since we were biking) and then the Maze. There is a huge wooden maze along highway 16 which took about an hour or so to solve. And finally, we checked out the Journey Museum in Rapid City which we got in for free since I work for OMSI.

On the 9th, we stayed in Rapid City for a day (as of this writing) since Dee was sick with a fever and since it was raining. But mommy, don’t worry cuz Dee’s better now.

Fourth of July in Newcastle, Wyoming eating Thanksgiving dinner and eating s’mores as the equivalent of the bombing of Dresden happens around us. That pretty much sums it all up.

Stewart and Sarah who we met in Yellowstone Park have fed us and been the best hosts ever here in eastern Wyoming. They did a six year around the world cycle trip which hit every single continent including Antarctica. Their two kids Klaus and Nathelie are so cute and crazy intelligent. The two year old has better grammar than me. Rizz from Canberra, Australia is here too. They sure don’t work much in the land down under. Aunt Nat is here too. As well as the Soviet missile disarmament. There was so much gunpowder in the air last night you’d think it was invented by bison in the plains of Wyoming.

Panda and Hello Kitty like siteseeing, too.

Since meeting the family on the 28th, we’ve had five days to make it here. 93, 66, 104, and 79 have been our mileages. Then a huge thunderstorm clogged my rear derailler housing and we got a ride for the last 70 miles.

We met train workers including a couple of engineers who drop by the town’s bar at night for a snack via LOCOMOTIVE.

Grand Tetons

While biking thru the Tetons (which was really cool), we met a woman cyclist named Lisa who was biking from Arizona on her way to the Rainbow Gathering. We met her again on our way to Grants Village, so we biked and camped out with her there. At Grants Village we met 4 more cyclists doing the TransAmerica Trail. The next morning we all shared Lisa’s special oatmeal and then parted ways.

The Great Divide

Lisa

West Thumb, me, and some waterfall

After touring through Yellowstone in a day by bus on the 28th (because we knew we didn’t have enough time by bike), we met up with Sarah and Stewart (friends of Vicki’s who’ve offered us a place to stay in Newcastle on the east side of Wyoming), who were visiting Yellowstone with their two kids, Klaus and Nathalie, and their friend from down under, Rizz. We quickly confirmed by sight that there was no way for us to fit in their car, so we left the next morning out of the East Entrance. Going up Sylvan Pass wasn’t too fun, but riding down was great. We did 93 miles by the time we reached Cody, beating our previous record of 86 miles. By sheer coincidence, we were passing by the motel my bro stayed in last time he was here when we decided to look for a motel. That night I uploaded all that stuff that was posted on the 29th.

our stay in Cody

We biked to Greybull the next day, and then decided that we had to make it to Sheridan if we wanted to see Devil’s Tower before going on to Newcastle. Seeing that there was quite a steep pass between Greybull and Sheridan, we finally accepted our destiny and hitchhiked for the first time. A nice family got us to almost the top. We biked for about 5 more miles and camped by the side of the road right at Granite Pass. Dee woke me up at 2:30 so we could check out the stars. Dee showed me where Delphinus the Dolphin is!

Granite Pass

view coming down the Granite Pass

On the 1st we made it to Sheridan by noon, doing a record 60 miles before lunch, 40 of it the longest downhill we will ever do. We stopped at a KFC and hung out there for about 2 hours assessing the situation. Since we were supposed to be in Sheridan the day before we were still behind schedule. We saw that there was a train going from Sheridan all the way to Newcastle, passing Gillette and Moorcroft. Unfortunately, we found out it was not a passenger train. We decided to hitchhike again. While we were at KFC we met quite a few people. Forget youth hostels; forget hiker/biker campsites; if you want to meet travelers, nothing beats the 11 herbs and spices. Another nice family (on their way to Montana) chatted with us, took our photo, and then gave us a little book of excerpts from the Bible and $20. While neither of us believe in God, we do believe in kind acts and good deeds, so I convinced my brother that we should accept the gift as a kind gesture and not worry about the motivation.

Before we hitchhiked, Dee convinced me that we should bike another 40 miles so that we could say that we had done 100 in a day. The biking map showed that the best route to take would be thru Ucross along a country highway instead of along the Interstate thru Buffallo. We couldn’t have chose a poorer time to leave. There was a little 5 minute hill right at the start. I sweated more in those 5 minutes than I had the previous 5 years. Our entire bodies were drenched with sweat. You know how Shaq looks by the 4th quarter, with beads of sweat dripping down his face? We had sheets of it. It was the weirdest thing. After the hill we stopped and looked at each other wondering, ‘what the hell?’

We made it to Ucross (97 miles) and decided that hitchhiking was out of the question since there were no cars on the road! We couldn’t stay in Ucross (no places and we hadn’t made 100, yet), so we continued on to Clearmont, but this posed a slight problem because we had run out of water and it looked like some rainclouds were behind us catching up fast. Dee stopped by a house and asked for water. ‘Cold right out of the well,’ the nice lady said. He filled up one of his bottles and came to pour half of it in one of my bottles. We took sips then left. It was the most godawful, foul smelling, sulfur laden water we’d ever tasted. No time to mix in Kool-Aid; the clouds were right behind us and Dee was being a bastard. Four miles from Clearmont I got a flat tire. I was hurriedly fixing it when my brother was able to get a pickup to pull over and offer a lift right as the thunder and rain started. We threw everything in the back and got in ourselves since the cab was full of people. My front wheel was still being worked on and unattached. We still got wet since we’re in back. We arrived at Clearmont and Dee’s hurriedly setting up the tent in 50 mph winds while I fixed my tire. We were able to camp out right next to an RV park for free. To my horror, I realized that, in my haste, I must have loosened the nut for my skewer too far and it fell off. In other words, I lost the axle part of my front wheel, and we were 50 miles from the closest bike store.

Stop signs aren’t safe from us if we’re between cities.

typical day in Wyoming

The storm lasted all of 10 minutes and everything dried up after an hour or so, but by then it was dark so we waited until morning before deciding what to do. I woke up a 6:30, put the skewer from my trailer on my front wheel, and biked back the way we came while Dee cooked and ate oatmeal. Four miles down, to my astonishment, I found the nut; I guess it was heavy enough that the wind didn’t blow it away. We put every thing in order then continued on our way. We ate breakfast around 9 at RBL Buffallo Ranch. They told us that 30 miles down was a cafe where we could get lunch and 30 miles after that was Gillette. We fought headwinds the whole way and it was around 2 when we reached the cafe, Spotted Horse. Apparently, a single cafe is enough to put you on the map in Wyoming. There was nothing else there and it was closed. By now, we’d eaten all of our food for the last few days and again we were out of water, but luckily we found a garden hose and filled up that way. Around 6 we started nearing Gillette while watching a thunderstorm rage on ahead of us. Our second thunderstorm! I guess they’re all the rage in Wyoming. We watched lightning and heard thunder for a good 40 minutes before we started getting really close. When we started to feel rain we paused to discuss the situation.

‘We could pull over and cover ourselves with a tarp until it blows over,’ Dee spoke but then said, ‘Ah, let’s just go for it.’ And with that he started pedaling again. I follow.

Then we were hit with harder rain and a sudden burst of wind which nearly knocked our bikes over. I’m guessing it was around 50 mph, but I’m not a very experienced judge of wind speed. I do know that it was fast enough to make cycling impossible. We were putting our jackets on and getting ready to dive to the side of the road when a white sedan pulled over. The teenager asked if we wanted to stay in his car until the storm blew over and that he wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere. Dee said no, but I yelled heck yes, so we piled in after laying our bikes down. Nathan turned out to be a really nice guy whose father used to cycle quite frequently. We asked him questions about Gillette and laughed at the storm once in a while, like when the rain turned into really heavy rain and when the really heavy rain turned into hail. ‘Even under a tarp,’ Nathan said, ‘you’d definitely feel that hail.’

Huge tire

Half an hour later, we’re back on the road to Gillette. Gillette isn’t where they make razors, but it is one of the richest cities in Wyoming due to relatively new coal mines. Environmentally speaking, it’s quite unfortunate how much coal there is, but from a visitor standpoint, it’s pretty neat watching all that heavy machinery. Those dump trucks must be kind of fun to drive. Each tire weighs more than 3 times my car, and I have a Volvo 240 which weighs more than many SUVs, 2 tons. Each tire of one of these dump trucks weighs 6.5 tons and costs $36,000!

We ate at a Chinese restaurant, where they made us dishes that aren’t on the menu. Most white Americans have no idea what they’re missing. Unfortunately, we were so hungry when we entered Gillette that we also ate at a Burger King before we saw the Chinese place, so we ended up with tons of leftovers.

The next morning (the 3rd of July) we were ready to ride to Devil’s Tower and then to Moorcroft and maybe all the way to Newcastle. We went about two blocks when we stopped for groceries. I went shopping while my bro tried to lube up his rear derailleur since he was having problems shifting. When I exited the store, it looked like my bro’s bike exploded; he had decided to overhaul the derailleur since lubing it wasn’t working. Two hours later, we decided to go to a bike store to get them to fix it since we weren’t having any luck. We biked to the first one. Closed. We called the second, and last, one. No answer. I guess the 3rd is also a holiday, giving people a nice 4 day weekend. To make a long story just a little bit shorter, Stewart came to Gillette and picked us up, and we had a lovely view of Devil’s Tower from the road.

While in Gillette, I had time to think a little about Wyoming. Two things that I think give it character: fireworks stores – actual stores, not just little seasonal shacks – and drive-up liquor stores – which probably account for 60% of the litter on the highways. I guess the bison are neat, too.

July 4th Thanksgiving dinner – Rizz, Max, Mark, Klaus, Stewart, Sarah, and Aunt Nat

We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Sarah and Stewart, the kids, Rizz, and Aunt Nat who brought the turkey. They wanted to give Rizz from Australia an extra dose of American culture. Stewart and Sarah got married in Japan while on their 6 year bicycling tour of the world. They met Vicki while on that tour (in Thailand, I believe it was) and they met Rizz and a bunch of Rizz’ friends in Australia who were also touring. I cannot imagine ever having better hosts. They make cool friends, too, and Klaus and Nathalie are so easy to get along with. We then checked out fireworks at one of their friend’s places. It seemed like each block had at least one very patriotic homeowner. All through the night, we were surrounded by fireworks displays. Fun.

June 26:

‘So, do you think we should get a ride with them?’ I ask furtively.

‘Naw man, we can’t get a ride,’ Dee replies, then pauses, ‘Well, let’s think about this.’

In the background, we can hear the TV movie playing for some of the other people staying at the hostel in Jackson. The basement bunkhouse is nice and cool, and the social room has plenty of room for us to spread our maps.

‘Okay… if we leave today, we can spend a couple of days in Yellowstone then bike thru Wyoming in about 5 days and meet them on the 3rd, right?’

‘Okay…’

‘And if we get a ride, we can hang out with them in Yellowstone from the 28th to the 2nd and then just ride with them across Wyoming. The question is: Is the rest of Wyoming as interesting as Yellowstone?’

‘Hmmm… I don’t think so. I mean, last time I went thru Wyoming it was pretty boring, but I think a lot of it was at night.’

‘Well, okay. I think we should just spend our time in Yellowstone then.’

‘Okay fine, but we still need to call them to make sure they can meet us and offer us a ride.’

‘Hello?’ A mans’ voice, third ring.

‘Hi, is this Stewart… Shipman?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘Hi, this is Mark Chen, Vicki’s friend who’s riding across the US.’

‘Yeah! Hi Mark. Where are you guys?’

‘We’re in Jackson right now. I remember you saying that you’re going to be in Yellowstone, and that maybe we could hang out with you.’ I explain our thinking and how we’d love a ride across Wyoming.

‘Hold on a sec and I’ll get Sarah on the line, too.’

‘Hi Mark!’

‘Hi Sarah!’

‘So,’ Stewart explained, ‘Mark was wondering if he and his brother could get a ride to Newcastle after checking out Yellowstone with us. He thinks they’d like to spend more than just a day in Yellowstone and if we give them a ride, they can do that.’

‘Well, let’s see…’ Sarah reasoned, ‘there would be 7 of us in the car plus all our stuff plus the two bikes. I don’t think we’d have enough room. We could try getting bike racks and maybe we could borrow our friend’s Suburban.’

‘Whatever is least inconvenient for you, and we’d be more than happy to pay for gas…’ I say, ‘um… and we have trailers, not panniers…’

June 30:

‘Too bad we couldn’t fit,’ Dee remarks.

‘That’s okay. We’ll meet them on the 3rd in Newcastle,’ I reply.

‘It’s before 10, mostly downhill, and we’ve got our shades on. Maybe we’ll beat our record.’

‘Let’s roll.’

There is a certain peaceful simplicity to camping, chopping wood, gouging a two inch deep chasm in your shin, and screaming like a banshee. Alas though, we have been sleeping in a hostel, watching HBO, and catching shows at the local movieplex. Chicken Run and Titan AE to be exact. Both were a bit short but entertaining nevertheless. There were so many things wrong with Titan AE but it was fun anyway.

Three things that make you go hmmmm:

1. road signs of semi trucks tipping over. no explanation or speed caution, just a warning that it happens.
2. a dozen little grave markers along the road signifying road accidents. probably from drunk driving.
3. huge fallen branches in the bike lane during a very windy day. um, excuse me Bell Helmets, but do you have a falling tree test?

Yellowstone

It is rainy and cold in Yellowstone right now as I write this message. The body acquires a certain stickiness and odor after this many days without a shower and repeated applications of sunscreen, bug repellant, and aloe. I can do shampoo hairstyles without the shampoo. It is an interesting feeling when the residue prevents me from feeling if I’m wearing any clothes. I swear I wore something yesterday when biking but it has all become a blur.

There are a lot of mosquitos here.

It seems like its been a week or so since you last updated your webpage… what’s up? Nothing happening? Or were you tricked and then trapped by aged confederate soldiers who kept you in their tumbledown cellar fattening you up in order to eat yah? Or were you bitten by radioactive spiders giving you new and strange powers as well as a lousy sense of direction, unable to tell where you’re heading with your eight directional eyes? Did Mark eat too much of his ‘fastfood firsts’ have an alergic reaction, turning purple and swelling up and being mistakenly rolled away by singing Umpalumpas?

What’s going on?

If there were a prize to be had for being completely inconsiderate to forms of transportation which do not require fossil fuels, Idaho might take first place. I had noticed by the time we reached Caldwell that it was very difficult to bike in Idaho. No bike lanes and sometimes no shoulders even. By the time we reached Nampa I realized that there were hardly any sidewalks! ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘maybe these cities are too small and Boise will be different.’ Boy was I wrong. In all of Boise I noticed two streets with bike lanes and they don’t take you to any place useful. Asking about bike shops brought blank stares from almost everyone I tried. When I finally found a bike shop, I asked them for a bicycle map of the city. ‘Sure we have maps,’ they said; then they showed me a rack of mountain biking books of Idaho. No one commutes by bike I guess.

I love Idaho

Leaving Boise was not much better. We had to take I-84 most of the way to Bruneau Sand Dunes. Interstate riding kinda sucks. There was a frontage road most of the way, but a lot of it was gravel, so we couldn’t use it. The road from Buhl to Shoshone was also difficult due to the 40 mph side wind. I guess that and all the thorns aren’t anyone’s fault…

The only part of this website that gets periodic updates is the log section. Before we left on the trip, we created the whole site including template files for the log. We are using some special Cold Fusion tags to help automate the entries.

For a new entry. all we have to do is write the paragraphs and add code for the photos. Then we save it as a numbered file (ie. 0615.htm) and upload the file and photos. We then update a list file so that we can annotate our entries (ie. written by…). When you click on a link in the list, a template file is loaded with the content of whatever number entry it is. Gee, I hope this makes sense.

Idaho

I mentioned that we are using Cold Fusion. Cold Fusion Server is known as middleware. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Mark’s employer, is generously hosting our site for us. When you click on a link on OMSI’s server and that link has the .cfm extension then the Cold Fusion server intervenes and translates any Cold Fusion code into straight html which it then passes to the regular web server. This allows us to generate dynamic pages where the pages’ content depends on circumstances of the instant. The template files are examples of these .cfm files and the log entries are the content.

Most of the entries written by Mark are written on his palm-sized Windows CE device, a Casio Cassiopeia E-105. This device runs on an OS very similar to Windows for the desktop computer. It has a compact flash slot which is also the media that his digital camera uses. To edit his images he copies the image files from the camera and then uses a program called Pocket Artist to crop and rotate and color correct or adjust the brightness/contrast. The text and images are uploaded with a compact flash modem and an ftp program called Scotty FTP. Mark has an account with AT&T which has local numbers in most urban areas and an 800 number as well. Unfortunately, there are some long dry spells where we don’t have access to a phone jack.

Max writes his entries using a Sharp Pocketmail device. He can send and receive email using almost any phone. He just calls an 800 number and holds the device to the phone receiver. So he emails his entries to Mark which Mark then edits with the Cassiopeia (Mark telnets to his Reed account to get his email) and uploads to OMSI.

Max’s photos are taken with a Sony Mavica, so they get uploaded when we have access to a PC with a floppy drive like at a local library or internet cafe.

For more info on any of this, just do a search for what your interested in using any search engine or email us.

We are in Jackson Hole, Wyoming now and time is definitely ticking. We have the option to keep going today and rush through Yellowstone which we hear is quite bike unfriendly, or stay with a family which would stress our tight schedule.

Anyway, we met another NBG rider who left from Santa Cruz on June 4th. Alex rode through Nevada and has been doing crazy 100 plus mile days and nights. Man, compared to a bunch of other riders, we’ve been taking it quite easy. We met a guy in Idaho Falls (the only tourer in all of Idaho) who has been living on the road for a while and doesn’t carry any money. Also, check out http://www.cycleology.com/NBG for other stories. Especially read Stav’s. He’s totally crazy. Biking at night, pulling a dog, eating only fast food, and suffering from serious headwinds. He’s the MAN – read: fool.

So Alex got his laptop stolen from this hostel here. bunch of savages in this town. Other than that Jackson has been pretty cool. I watched a rodeo last night on the way to Albertson’s. Everyone here oggles at my recumbent. I pretty much laugh at their Ford F250’s. We might watch Titan AE tonight.

I almost took a spill yesterday in some muddy road construction. Saved by quick reflexes and dashing good looks. We’ve been plagued with flats in the past few days. I actually shredded a rear tire too. Strong cross winds and tailwinds were with us for a while in Idaho. I thought it was great fun. I love extreme weather. Almost got sucked into the underbelly of a semitruck and nearly road into a river, but hey, it’s all fun and games until I die, right?

Bruneau Sand Dunes

Movie of Max rolling down a hill

So in summary, after staying at the extremely hospitible Jensen’s residence in Nampa we stayed in the Robb Hanson party house in Boise. After some great Chinese food, he gave us a tour of Boise. We saw the potato mack daddy’s house on top of the hill. Then off to Bruneau Sand Dunes via the hellish I-84. The dunes were cool, especially the observatory program. It reminded me of the long Friday nights at the Cornell Observatory.

Teepee

Movie of our teepee

The next day was really hot and we chanced a frontage road that ended at a ferry dock at the Snake River. That sucked, so we turned back and chanced yet another frontage road (84 is not fun) which ended in gravel. After this ten mile detour we decided to take 84. I felt super sleepy and bloated after lunch (another college reminder) and we only ended up at Glenn’s Ferry. Just our luck there was one teepee still available! We are Indian, we have teepee. (that’s a quote from Cannibal the Musical, and is not meant to be a racial slur) dang that was one nice teepee.

Then to Buhl. Bo thought it would thunderstorm but nothing happened. His shoulders were all blistery and pussy from the sunburns. yay! Then to Shoshone via Twin Falls and after a disappointing Wok and Grill Mongolian BBQ. [Mark’s note: the waterfalls sucked, too, because they divert the water in the summer months for agriculture; try mid Spring instead if you plan on seeing the falls.] More specifically, a bed and breakfast in Shoshone because no motels were still in business. There was a guy living in a shack with a motel sign in front of it. [Mark’s note: the B and B we stayed at was also home to two foreign exchange students who were summer interning at a cheese factory; how someone in a foreign country finds a cheese factory in the middle of Idaho to work at, I have no idea.] We sure are living the good life. oh, this was the day when I almost died crossing the Windy Bridge of Death and we had to struggle across the Gusty Plains of Certain Peril.

Craters of the Moon

Craters of the Moon. Cool beans. Caves. My flashlight died so I explored by the light of my Sony Mavica. Once again it has saved my life. A mouse ran across my arm during the night. There were big signs throughout the campgrounds warning against feeding the rodents because they carried a respiratory disease. The stars were worth the risk of early pulmonary cancer though.

More Craters of the Moon

Flying a kite at Craters of the Moon

Then to Arco. We played minigolf and ate at Grandpa’s BBQ. Not as good as San Francisco’s Brother’s in Law, but ok nevertheless.

Mark’s note: Unfortunately, we didn’t visit the first nuclear reactor after we left Arco… If you want to learn more about it, you can ask my friend Chris who gives tours there sometimes.

70 miles of desert nothing to Idaho Falls. Almost became like Clint Eastwood in the beginning to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when our water ran out at mile 40 or so. A minivan family blessed us with four bottles in the nick of time.

Warning outside of Idaho Falls?

Take that you vultures! You won’t be eating my eyeballs today! In Idaho Falls we met Dean Miller, a fellow Cornellian. He fed us yummy pesto and let us stay in his basement. His dog Solo was very friendly too. Thanks Dean! Dean told us of his mountain bike friend who on races drinks cheap salad dressing because they provide high calories with just enough hydration, and eats Little Debbie Cakes because they have the most calories per cent. That too is Manly – read: hella stupid. We also met Johan, the biker with no money.

Palisades Dam, bad photo vs. good photo

Camped at Alpine, just before the Idaho Wyoming border. The very last day in Idaho was actually pleasant biking. The proximity to the Snake River let us cool off anytime and the surrounding mountains were gorgeous. Lots of mosquitos though. Lots of mosquitos. Did I say lots of mosquitos yet? Well there are lots. of mosquitos that is.

into Jackson

now we are in Jackson. so it goes.

It’s been almost a week since my last update! Max’s update dated the 11th was written then, but actually posted just five minutes ago. It is about 11 PM in Nampa, near Boise.

Now a little side note: Max has been referring to me as Bo. I guess since he’s doing that, I might as well start referring to him as Dee. Ask your Mandarin speaking friends why.

As you can read in my brother’s latest, we ended up staying an extra day in Prineville. They have the best freakin library I’ve ever been in except for the number of books. Not many books, but dang that is a nice library! Dee told me that they should have made a deal with San Francisco, who recently threw away tons of books because their new library was too small to hold them all… Yikes.

Whole in the Wall, Mitchell

After Prineville, we biked to Mitchell. Mitchell is a really small, one street town with two stores, a couple of motels, a nice city park, and a gas station right next to it. I have no clue why the town exists. As far as I could tell, that was all that was in the town, as if their whole purpose of being is for bikers to buy stuff from their stores and camp out in their city park or stay at their motels. If you were in a car, you’d just keep driving until you got to a more respectable place to stay. Oh, wait, I forgot. There’s two purposes for the town. The second one is for semi trucks to come by and sit idle at the gas station for about 3 hours stinking up the whole town and especially stinking up the nice city park.

While dining on some fine ramen in the stinky city park, we met two more bikers (in addition to John who was staying at a motel and Sean and Virginia (the superheroes) who were also camping in the smelly city park) who were traveling the opposite way. They started out in Missoula and were just going west, probably going to go up thru Portland to Seattle and then down the coast until the summer is over.

some Oregon scenery

The next day we left pretty early to tackle a really steep climb out of Mitchell which we thought we might have to walk at one point, but it turned out to be easier than we thought it would be and as a result we made some awesome time after the climb. We biked to John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, stayed for lunch (mmm.. peanut butter and honey and banana sandwiches), biked through Dayville, and made it to Mt. Vernon. Interestingly, Mt. Vernon is named after a horse or something like that. Get it? Mount Vernon? 🙂 We weren’t able to update the webpage since our motel room didn’t have a phone! Apparently this is not uncommon with small town motels, as it happened three times in a row… The scenery was real nice. I’ve come to really appreciate Oregon scenery. I remember I kept thinking everything was soo green and red, but then I also remember that I kept forgetting I was wearing high contrast lenses.

Kam Wah Chung and Co. Museum

On Sunday, the 11th, we left Mt. Vernon and got to John Day. I was hoping that I could replace my cassette there, but the bike shop closed a while back… There was supposed to be this cool old Chinese shop museum type of thing in John Day called the Kam Wah Chung and Co. Museum, but it wouldn’t open for another two hours so we went to the library. The library was also closed. So we stopped at a cafe and hung out there for two hours reading our books. Dee bought two books from the library in Prineville (yes they sold books too), and I got his hand-me-downs, The Never Ending Story. In the cafe we met an older couple who were also biking. They were on a tandem (two person bike). Pretty cool. The museum turned out to be pretty cool. Dee will write more about it. No photos allowed, but I took a couple before reading the sign…

Sag’s Motel

After checking out the museum, we decided to keep biking to Prairie City. We stayed in a swank motel two miles east of town. No phone, but they had everything else: VCR, something like 5 comfy chairs, a kitchen, room decorations, cabinets, bookshelves, a few books, lots of American Rifleman and People magazines, and a little store run by the proprietors of the motel that featured bootleg videos to rent (including Spanish or Mexican porn) and lots of various Mexican canned foods. Apparently, the motel (Sag’s Motel – run by Mr. Sagmeister) is usually home to a lot of migrant workers who stay for an extended period.

Keyes Creek summit and Blue Mountain Pass – I don’t remember when we passed each one, but here are the photos anyway

On Monday, the 12th (Robin’s birthday), it was raining pretty bad, but we decided that we had to keep going. We had two hills to climb before reaching the town of Unity on Hwy 26. Soaking wet. Really tired. Out like a light at 5, but Dee wanted to fly his kite again since it was really, really windy. When we flew the kite, the local chicks digged us a lot, but never did anything other than cruise their one street making catcalls. Who knew cruising existed in a town with like 100 people?

Unity, we’ll miss you…

The scenery drastically changed in the last two days. It went from forest to shrubs. Still nice, but different. Drier I guess… Yesterday, it was very warm outside. We made some awesome time doing like 73 miles, and it was mostly a gradual downhill all the way to Vale, but man was it warm. Surprisingly warm. I am burnt crispier than KFC. I’d take a photo and show you all, but I’m embarrassed by my pudgyness compared to Dee’s six-pack.

flat tire and lunch

Yesterday I called Vale, “The City of Gravel.” There are soo many traps waiting for unsuspecting bikers like us. Today I dubbed Vale a new name, “The City of Flat-tires.” I fixed my rear tire in the morning and biked three blocks to discover it had gone flat again from a different puncture. What a pain. We ate at a Diary Queen, our first fast-food since day 1 in Newberg. My first Diary Queen ever. It was weird because they came and took your order after you sat down and brought you the ticket after you had gotten your food, like a regular restaurant… Should we have left a tip?

As a consequence to my sun-burns and general soreness, today I was in pain most of the day. Ibuprofin, my angel in heaven… Today we crossed the Oregon/Idaho border. This trip will be a lot of fast-food firsts I guess, since today we had lunch at an A and W, famous for their rootbeer floats. It was pretty good. We’re now staying with the parents of one of Dee’s former co-workers. They are really nice and hospitable. Tomorrow we make it to Boise, which is only like 20 miles away, but we also need to stop at bike stores.

I already miss Oregon…