Bike Trip #10

Last week the Three Stooges, Three Musketeers, Three Biketeers, three in a hurry to make it back for school departed from the rest of the group. Mr. Lime, Gus and I started out on our altered course and of all the huge state of Montana, this is how much we saw. Don't blink now, you might miss it.

From there we started across southern Idaho. We saw lots and lots of the northern desert. It was endless, barren scrub. As barren as that was it didn't even compare to Craters of the Moon, which is a large lava field. We made a stop there and hiked around. The rough, uneven terrain was really hard walking. If you stumbled you'd be shredded on the volcanic rocks which also radiated all the heat of the sun. We needed to escape the heat for a bit and found a cave where Gus and I also noticed some unusual life forms.

We continued west. Just like we enjoyed trying pasties in Michigan we enjoyed other local yummies elsewhere. In Idaho we noticed a local candy called Idaho Spuds. The idea was kind of revolting but we thought we'd give it a try. It turned out to be a really bad idea because all three of us wound up with what we thought was food poisoning from these stupid things. We couldn't figure anything else it would have been. That night we slept in some park somewhere. ALERT TO G-MAN: SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. I use the term slept very loosely because we all spent the night puking our guts out. It was here that I earned the nickname Yertle the Turtle for the way I'd weakly pop my head out of my sleeping bag, hurl, and then retreat back inside before scootching back a couple of feet from my ejected stomach contents. Mr. Lime chided me for not having the decency to get up, walk across the street, and vomit on the lawn of the Mormon church like he had. I think I puked near his shoes in response. Gus just rolled around in agony and told us both to shut up.

Mr. Lime seemed to recover a little quicker than Gus and I so he set off while we tried to pack up. I am not sure how he pedalled the bike that day or how Gus and I drove. I remember pulling over at some two bit post office/general store combo place and the two of us laying on some faded dusty old couch feeling like death warmed over. Eventually Gus rallied and poured me back into the car and drove us on to meet Mr. Lime. I was really still quite knocked out by whatever had hit us and remember Mr. Lime telling us he had found lodgings for us that night.
As it turned out he had met some college girl, somewhere...I don't know how or where but she wound up inviting us to bunk at her house. All I know is that I was never so grateful for a shower and a soft bed. The girl's parents were away but she said she had called them and they were ok with it and we should stay until we were feeling better. I could barely even eat for a couple days even though the other two seemed to be rebounding. Her parents came home and I finally felt human again and they were just absolutely gracious to us. I still can't fathom folks being so totally ok with three nauseous strangers staying at their house for a couple days. I still don't quite know how we got hooked up with them but I am ever so thankful.

After that incredible kindness we moved along and met another family when the Pastor of the church we stayed at introduced us. The man was a farmer and Mr. Lime and Gus helped him bring in the hay one day while I helped his wife and daughter around the house. In the evening they drove us all over southern Idaho sharing the beautiful parts of the states. We saw Crater Lake and the Snake River and thoroughly enjoyed seeing what made 'home' so special to them.

ALERT TO GAWPO: PAY ATTENTION IN CASE YOU MISS IT. Even though Oregon's nickname is the Beaver State we decided it should have been called the Garnish State. We passed vast fields of mint and parsley. You just don't think of those things being grown on large scale but hey, someone has to provide all those sprigs for your side dishes and desserts in restaurants. I guess there is really no excuse for an Oregoner to have bad breath either. In addition to the vast garnish fields we found the little burgh of Wagontire. When we saw the sign on the building we absolutely had to stop and more than double the population for a little while. It was another one of those post office/general store/coffee shop combo buildings with a waitress who reminded me of every woman Gary Larsen has ever drawn in his Far Side comic. Pretty state though and I wished we had a bit more time to enjoy it. We had planned to go to the coast but time demanded we cut quickly on a diagonal toward California and wait to see the Pacific until then.

Next week onto the Golden State and the Pacific Ocean.