Well out in the outer boonies of the outback you will not find any WiFi. Don’t look for a Verizon store because you will not find one. I did not see any “texters” tapping their phones while walking down the road. With no cell phone towers out here they do not have a need for a fancy iPhone and iPoneys. You will not find anyone who is hopelessly addicted to their Blackberry. Maybe that is a good thing too. Remember when we survived without these items? Now we are all like puppets waiting for someone to pull one of our electronic strings. Because of this the team has been incommunicado.The morning when we left the mountains surrounding McCall Idaho it was a nippy 42 degrees. The mornings in the higher elevations always start off cold then quickly change to hot. Nothing in between. We start off with every piece of clothing we have on and 5 miles down the road we start peeling it all off. This is the scenario we have been playing out for a couple weeks now. By 10PM it is near 80 and by noon in the 90’s sucking every drop of moisture out of us.
Out of McCall we started another one of our long downhill trends. Other than a few “spikes” we went downhill for over 45 miles. We wondered “how low can we go” as we went deeper into the canyon towards Oxbow which is just over the border in Oregon. When we reached the river we were just below 1500 above sea level. We have not been there since we were east if the Mississippi! We all would rather stay up high in the hills because no matter what we will have to pay back the “loan” of the downhill with big payments of “uphill”. Just like at a bank if you borrow some elevation you will have to pay it back with interest.
Repayment of the downhill came via some serious installment payments as we entered Hell Canyon National Park. As you can see from the day’s profile.
Near the end of the day we entered the next to the last state of the tour Oregon. Now let’s pronounce the state correctly or the locals will jump on your chit quickly. it is NOT pronounced Or-e-gone it is Or-e-gin.
Idaho is a beautiful state with unbelievable sites but after 9 days we were ready to move on. Wyoming lumped us up with wind, Idaho tried to poison us with food. Oregon will love us….. ahhhhh nope. Oregon must have seen the WANTED posters the other states posted for the Notorious Spandex Biker Gang. Just after snapping a photo at the state line Tim’s front tire went flat. He changed out the tube rolled a few feet down the road and his rear tire went down. A couple miles further down the road Joe’s front tire went flat and Ken had a tire getting soft.
On the way to the motel we stopped for dinner. After we finished eating and returned to the bikes you will never guess what….yep Tim had a flat!!!
In the morning when we woke up we had another two more flat tires on our bikes! What is going on here anyway? Now we are out of tubes and that could be a major problem with forward progress if we get another flat.
106 Miles
4445 Feet of Climbing
Temperature 42 - 90 degrees
No word from the team. I suspect they are again on the edge of no where with no connection. News as it comes.
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