Day 12 - Allison Asks for help

Day – 12 Friday, June 29^th

Allison Asks…

Twin Falls to Burley, ID

Ride Stats:

Miles: 44

Time: 4 hrs

Average Spd: 14 mph

Max Spd: 30 mph

Weather:

More severe clear, a little warm (98 degrees according to local thermometer at the local bank), 10 knot tail wind out of the West (nice).

Incidents and Rider Report:

Big Mike Heitz was still in the SAG wagon due to his rear wheel rim damage. Today his new wheel showed up in Burley and he’s expected to ride tomorrow. I heard a rumor at dinner that one rider has gone home. Apparently 10 – 15% will drop out. I am not sure who it is yet. I think I was told “Dave” Van Cleve from Ramona CA, but this is unverified. The tri-motor ran on all cylinders today. It was an easy fun day and every one seemed to enjoy the short mileage, flat route and tail wind.

How I Feel (1-10):

We slept in today. The truck load time was 8:30 am!! A nice breakfast, low key ride, I was a 10 out of 10 today.

Well I might as well go public with this. Many of you have asked confidentially and I appreciate your candor. But being the open book that I am I will let you in on just how I am doing after riding twelve days in a row and peddling over 800 miles in the more delicate areas of the human anatomy. Day 5 was probably my low point in the South of the belt region. Not only were my legs a little sore but the skin around my seat bones had developed a little redness and some bumps. Frankly it was a little “ouchier” than I anticipated. Things have improved since then. I now have this thicker layer of skin in that special region. No numbness or other real irritation. The human body is pretty good at adapting. We do put cream on before we ride and desitin afterwards.

There, now you have it. Mom, really, I am ok and having fun!

Stuff happens:

With the big window available for breakfast today (5:30 – 8:30 am) I was able to sleep in a little and have a nice leisurely meal. Rich, the early morning riser is up and at ‘em at 5:30 or so like usual, but so quiet I never heard a thing. If there is any such thing as a perfect roommate, he has to be it. It takes me a little longer to get to bed at night and although I try I know I’m not as quiet as Rich. So Rich, thanks for putting up with me!

After the nice breakfast Allison Paine, 24 year old Stanford grad who is going to med school this fall, asks me if I’d like to join her and her father Joel Paine as a “team” to work on the scavenger hunt project of the day. I had not really thought too much about the scavenger hunt, but since Allison asked, I agreed to help. Some people really got into it. The three of us took pictures of the various items as we rolled along.

Allison’s dad Joel was born and raised in Bexly Ohio but defected to some school up North that we won’t mention on a Buckeye Booster Blog. They are a really nice father-daughter team. Being with them for the day reminded me of an adult version of Indian Princesses and sort of put me in awe of what a fantastic memory the two of them were making for each other. Seven weeks together, just father and daughter… sweating, having fun and seeing the USA in this very special way. They genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

The first part of the day we spend touring the Snake River gorge. Who would have guessed that a place that sounds as remote as Twin Falls Idaho would contain such fantastic beauty? Niagara Falls is highly marketed and well known, but check out my amateur photo’s of the falls and let me know what you think. Pretty cool eh?

We also have seen enormous amounts of stacked hay along the side of the road. These stacks I'm straddling are about 100 yards long and twenty feet high and they are just two of hundreds and hundreds we pass.

Tonight’s dinner took a little longer than usual due to the scavenger hunt contest. Our team’s submission of the events was done via an excellent slide show that Allison put together on her brand new Mac. Her boy friend was helping with things we wanted to do and didn’t know how to do. She would IM him a question and he’d ping back the answer. I negotiated for a video projector. Max Mendelson came through with a big assist on hooking it up. We couldn’t hook it up to the Mac but were able to hook it up to my laptop. Max then ported the IMAC show Allison created to my laptop by performing some computer voodoo. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t win, but the group seemed to enjoy the humor and appreciate the effort we put into it.

One particularly funny part was that we had to find out who the Governor of Idaho was. You might be surprised how many people who live and work in Idaho don’t know. But then do you know who the governor of Ohio is? Anyway, there is a great guy named Ernst who is from Switzerland and speaks English with a very heavy accent that is just like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. 68 year old Ernst is also a pretty tough guy. He came in second in the Colorado Iron Horse tough-guy bike race (for his age group 65+). So for our slide show we introduced the “Governator” of Idaho with this picture. ….

It went over well.

We also had to find out what the state bird was and we turned in this big bird we saw along the way. This wasn't the state bird, but you can figure out the real one on your own!

After dinner I work on the blog and get to bed. 5:30 breakfast, 6am departure, 110 desert miles tomorrow. Wish me luck.