Saturday, August 08, 2009

Day 54: Pocatello, ID to Burley, ID

Today was cold when we woke up. We spent some time wandering about the hotel, dragging out feet at getting moving and hoping it would warm up, but without much luck. About twenty miles away was the little town of American Falls, where I'd wanted to end up before we had to do makeup miles the day before. We'd reevalutate the weather when we got there.

We did notice quite a few cyclists outside, apparently attending an event at the University, but we didn't have the time to join them.

We started by riding up US-30 back toward the interstate - the same road we'd followed out of Jillian's parents house back in Pennsylvania. The roads were, thankfully, empty, perhaps due to the early hour.

Of course, we did make sure to stop at a gas station on our way out of town to get some coffee. My addiction to Starbucks Starbucks Doubleshot Energy+Coffee drinks was getting to be debilitating.

We passed a huge Simplot Factory west of town. Given the amount of sulfur moving into that place, I'd love to know what they do there.

We paralleled the highway for a while, stopping to chat with a car that wanted to check out our bike and get our story. After stopping at another gas station (you never know where the next stop might be), we took a picture of an amusing sign.

We started seeing some signs for construction. Usually we pay them close attention. But this one was telling us the road ahead was closed - maybe. The road names were a little confusing to us out of towners, and we weren't really sure. We eventually did arrive at a closed road - but only a closed bridge, over some train tracks. We could either cross the bridge anyway, or ride back a number of miles and use the highway. Since there was no construction actually happening at the time, and since equipment was parked on the top of the bridge, we rode right across the bridge. This construction zone also brought us another bonus: an unlocked port-a-potty on the far side.

After the bridge, the road moved away from the highway a bit and we spotted what appeared to be an elk farm. This was actually the closest we got to elk the entire trip.

Not much longer later we arrived in American Falls. Our route took us right past the hotel we'd considered staying at. Jillian didn't like the looks of it at all. Neither did I, but I felt like crap. Tired and cold. Very cold. We rode on to a Subway, where we stopped for some lunch.

I expected the hot food to make me feel better, but it had the opposite effect. I wanted nothing more in this world than to grab a room at a motel - any motel - and crash until the next morning. It was a long ride to the next real town - Burley. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do that, and if it rained I wasn't sure we'd be able to keep warm. Jillian agreed to let me make some phone calls about weather.

My father reported that the weather actually looked like it was going to be clearing up, and maybe even warming up some. How depressing that was. I'd really hoped he was going to tell me something terrible, like that it was going to snow. Before we went any further we took the bike to the Bingham Coop, where we bought some gloves. Never in a million years did I expect to be wearing what appeared to be surplus Army gloves in the middle of August. We got some food, eating it at a little table. I'm not sure either of us were actually that hungry, we just didn't want to venture out into the cold. Jillian also hunted in vain for warmer clothing. I may or may not have had another Starbucks Doubleshot

We finally did get moving, riding past the town festival on our way out of town. We followed little side roads as long as we could, but eventually we were forced onto the Interstate, which is completely legal in Idaho. Fortunately, this was a very short trip on the Interstate. Only a mile down the road was a rest area and history center.

Here, Idaho was pretty again.

From the rest area we were able to follow a paved hiking trail to Massacre Rocks State Park. Though the area was famous for a massacre on the Oregon Trail, I was mostly fascinated by the former waterfall. Apparently way back in the day there'd been a massive amount of water that flowed through the area all at once, cutting this notch in the cliff walls.

Past Massacre Rocks we were able to keep off the highway again. We followed a little road up a small hill, gaining a nice view of the valley below us before heading back across the highway to stop at Register Rock, where many Oregon Trail travelers carved their names.

We didn't stay long, as we had a long way to travel and there was some sort of family picnic going on.

Not long later we flatted, again, in the front.

Thankfully, it had finally started to warm up some and I wasn't quite as miserable.

This was actually a fairly nice area to ride, with mostly empty roads and kind drivers. After climbing another hill, we passed a state rest area. Of course, we had to stop, since we weren't sure how much further we had to go, but there was a fence in the way. We carefully positioned the bike and found a way to sneak through the fence and bushwack our way to the rest area. After that it was another series of miles of nothing.

Except then we turned away from the highway. I thought I knew what nothing was. I knew nothing about nothing.

In this nothing, there weren't even any telephone polls, let alone buildings. We rode for miles, rather concerned that we were so far from everything. But, just when we started to feel sorry for ourselves for not taking the highway, we noticed a massive storm cloud, but far to our south. If we'd stayed on the highway we would have likely been stuck riding through the storm cloud. Instead, we rode through nothing at all.

Our immediate goal was the town of Rupert, which was locally famed for its nice downtown. That little image kept me going through the miles of nothing. When we did finally reach civilization again, after crossing the Snake, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the sun started dipping below the horizon as we crossed the Snake River and moved into Rupert.

Rupert, with its gorgeous downtown, was no longer our goal. I kept us east of town, as we turned south and headed for Burley. We stopped briefly to use a gas station and take a bearing on the Garmin. Then we were back moving again, making great time without any wind and with the best temperatures we'd had all day. Bike touring is like that. Low and high spirits on the same day.

As we got closer to town, I realized we needed to be one exit further down on the highway. We had three options. We could either ride into the town of Heyburn, make a right, and travel down 21st street and deal with what I thought was a fairly busy commercial district. Or we could get on the Interstate and deal with riding in the dark. Or we could turn down 300 South Road. Numbered roads usually concern us a bit, since there's a good chance they might not be paved, but this one seemed like it might. Jillian was very opposed - she'd spent enough time in nowhere today, and wanted to stay a little closer to lights and people. I wanted to stay away from lights and people while it was dark. Ultimately, perhaps because I had the handlebars, we turned down the very rural road.

The road did turn out to be dark, and we weren't able to make great time. Jillian was nervous all the time, for good reason. There were just enough houses that people lived nearby, but not enough houses for people to chain their dogs up. Dog barks freaked us both out, since dogs are nearly impossible to see in the dark. We were also splashed by mist from some irrigation machine - we hoped it was only water and not water mixed with some sort of pesticides or fertilizer.

This actually wound up being a really terrible area of riding for us. We yelled at each other, with no real result. There was nothing left to do but move on. Our spirits soared when we saw the bright yellow sign of the Super 8.

After checking in, we tried to find some food. The gas station next to the motel said they sold pizza - but we were unimpressed. We grabbed some sodas and instead retreated to the hotel and ordered a pizza and breadsticks. Jillian was in terrible spirits by this point. But we devoured the food and found some sleep, happy with each other again.

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