With my ride broken into two days I had time to explore some Payette County roads looking for a way to avoid state highway miles in the future, and I discovered paved county roads that will let me eliminate 15 of them. The weather was perfect until I neared Ontario where a cloud bank and thunderstorm in the West generated headwinds that slowed me to less than 10 MPH for the last 15 miles.
Vale's Prospector Campground at mile 95 was sparkling clean, the grass area perfectly flat for my tent, and a large rib-eye steak awaited me as an evening's “Special”. As I returned to camp, I thought I saw two cycle-tourists walking out of the campground, but sometimes I imagine things I want! Nonetheless, there still were two tourists (Freddie & George) ever so slowly putting up two tents next to mine with a group of loaded touring bikes locked to a nearby tree. Four Brits who recently graduated from Oxford were cycling the Trans Am before entering the work force and had decided to shortcut by cutting off the North Idaho section by cycling through Fairfield to Rexburg, ID. Having allowed only about 60 days for what is usually a 90 day trip, the short-cut into the most boring part of South Idaho is probably warranted. The Brits had ridden 102 miles that day from Prairie City to Vale, OR over the Blue Mountains and were too tired to go to the rodeo which they really wanted to see- as their first Rodeo. The rodeo had Vale buzzing- literally- there was no place in town the announcer on the rodeo’s loudspeakers couldn’t be heard. Soon, the other two tourists (Alex & Phil) returned with two large pepperoni pizzas- no salad or fruits. Oh, to be 21 again!
Freddie had a great touring bike with a frame and components any knowledgeable tourist would enjoy. The other three had something of crosses between touring and day-racing bikes but with touring gears. All had only rear panniers and handlebar bags like tourist of the 1970’s. Last summer the four of them had ridden from somewhere in France to Istanbul, so I was eager to hear as much as possible about that trip.
These Brits had just obtained an Idaho State highway map and had hoped to plan a route that night but were pretty easy to convince to ride with me on the paved county roads through irrigated farm country that makes me like this route.
We arrived in Adrian on the 4th of July to see people lining up along the street- some of whom clapped and cheered our arrival. It turns out we arrived just minutes before the local parade started. The Brits were really looking forward to a small town 4th of July, and no one but them seemed to notice their Union Jack hats- on the 4th of July! If any of you ever stayed for the parade at Winchester Days when “Bite the Bullet” was part of that celebration, Adrian’s parade makes Winchester’s look like a big city event. Since it was novel, the Brits enjoyed it though it included only a fire engine, ambulance, a few 1950’s cars, and the Lion’s Club float with the cheerleaders throwing out candy- no bands, no horses, nothing else.
Alex is the son of a gentleman farmer, and I enjoyed showing him the various crops of Southwest Idaho- which he could identify the next time we saw those same crops. Temperatures were rising and crossing the hill that divides the Snake River drainage from the Boise River drainage outside of Marsing seemed to tire everyone. George still pushed for a faster pace as the Boise Night Life and the chance to see another 4th of July celebration was calling, but his attempts to speed the group at first sped only him and me and then only sped me. I wanted their company, so I'd slow back down, and there were no more calls for faster riding. The group was weakening.
By the time we left Nampa Alex started riding slowly and stopped riding a straight line. I tried to convince him to soak for a while in an irrigation ditch, but he insisted he was OK. About 15 miles out of Boise he became too weak to continue and lay down in the shade and green grass of not-long-ago rural church that is now surrounded by sprawl. Three of us rode to my home (mile 87) where I got the car and went back for Alex and Phil who had stayed back to watch Alex.
I had no luck at convincing them to stay at my place. They have adequate funds for motels and had only been in the Vale RV Park because the rodeo had the motels full. That explains why setting up the tents took so long; they rarely do it. They wanted to be in downtown Boise for it’s 4th of July celebration in the downtown park, and found a good motel for that and their planned layover day on the 5th. They’ll make many discoveries on their cross country trip- about themselves as well as this country. I had a great day touring with them and may be vicariously with them for a few more days!
Their blog can be found at: http://www.theamericanexpress.co.uk/challenge.html
Happy Cycling for fun, fitness, and transportation!
Steve
