The Ride 8/3, Boise to Cascade, ID, 67 miles

Today’s ride was great and inspiring in multiple ways. We took route 55 out of Boise and it was both amazingly scenic and very challenging. And we made it.
We were finally able to get an early start and were on the road by 7:15. We’re at the far western edge of mountain standard time so it wasn’t light much earlier than that. At that point it was still cool and we knew we had a climb coming early so it was especially important to get going. We had a great first 5 miles and then began a 7 mile climb that gained 1500 feet in elevation and took us up to 4270 ft. It was very hard but the fact that we started it early in our ride and that it was initially cool helped us finish. By the time we finished it was back up to 95 degrees, but getting some significant progress in some cooler temps was really rewarding. We then had a downhill of almost 6 miles into Horseshoe Bend.
This was really interesting as the entire downhill shoulder was littered with bungie cords. I was ripping along thinking that if I were closer to home I could have collected dozens of perfectly good bungie cords (for what who knows, but you know how that works) when it occurred to me that everyone of them had flown off a descending vehicle, probably at some sort of ballistic speed. After that I braced whenever I was over taken by anything. At some point in this stretch I added to the debris when my (newly purchased at REI in Eugene) tail light shook itself lose and left the program. I heard something but was in no position to stop and only figured it out later in the day.
Horseshoe Bend was kind of bleak. The convenience store we stopped at had heavily barred windows and a prominent sign out front offering to take WIC coupons. We got a 5% discount for paying with real cash. I hit the post office as we left town to ship my first culled stuff home and drop my pannier weight. The clerk was more interested in telling what I saved with their flat rate shipping program but also told me I was sending home almost 6 lbs, so that was a great thing. Leaving the PO, we ran in to an old farmer who was very curious as to where we were headed. He told us what a beautiful ride we were going to have and then headed over to his pickup. Before we had ridden off, he came back over handed Judith a beautiful fully ripened tomato he had just picked that morning. “Here, you might like this later today.” And we did at lunch time.
Our ride followed the Payette River north. The river gorge is very scenic and a big time attraction for white water rafting and kayaks. Which means, of course that it was a steady climb the entire distance.
More Americana – early on we passed a shop that made us think of our good friend Jan. A “sportsman’s shop and general mercantile”. They had prominent signs for Lugers, Glocks, survival foods, ammunition and Amish quilts (!). The special of the week was 1/3 off on Amish quilts with purchase of an on sale handgun. You can’t make this stuff up.
Back to the ride. Long, beautiful, steady hard work in temps that once again went up over 100. Yuck. But beautiful. At lunch time we enjoyed our tomato near a rafting company in the shade near the river and then headed back out. The day went on forever. With the temps so high even our drinking water was getting unbearable and just about then we passed a state campsite named “Cold Springs”. I saw it in time to stop and reload all our canisters and that helped. A short while later we found a state site where were able to get to the river and cool now for a while. Another godsend. At the site, we ran into a fellow about our age who had grown up locally and was bringing his family back to see things. He was full of useful info about the areas we’re headed into over the next few days.
Back on the road, more of the same: some of the most beautiful scenery you could imagine, steady heat and climbing that made it very hard to appreciate anything.
Finally as the day wore towards an end we reached a large construction project taking traffic down to one lane and using a guide truck to take groups thru. Tough for us. As we struggled thru this one of the guide trucks pulled over. The driver looked like a bedraggled Jesus, full beard, long hair, very lean. He suggested we load our bikes into the pickup and he would drive us through the mess. And, oh by the way, might as well take us to the top of the climb. We weren’t saying no. I rode in the back with the bikes and Judy talked with him as he jumped us ahead about 3 miles. Turned out he was a lay minister (holy roller, as he said) and felt obliged to help us out. He offered some good advice to us as to how to deal with Lolo Pass when we reach it and told us somehow greed is spoiling the high country of Idaho. Thank you, Reverend Hershel Coulter.
Another 6 miles took us into Arrowhead Campgrounds in Cascade (very tidy, great value) where we did the subs and collapse thing. Great day in many, many ways.
Two more notes:
Wildlife – we continued to see many osprey throughout the day and also saw an ermine as roadkill. I’ve never seen one in the wild, dead or alive so I’m counting it.
Totally different – we heard this morning that my good friend Bob Daniels may have suffered a stroke. Bob is a special person, who created Copperfield Chimney Supply (in his own image in many ways) and has been a key figure in the American TM movement for the last 25 years. I had the chance to work with him for several years and we became good friends. I’m sending good thoughts to him while we wait to hear more.
Michael