Day 28: Doctor doctor (Boise)

Nothing better than waking up in a house you feel totally at home in. I loved staying with the Gallinats; I need to make a Warm Showers account just to acknowledge their incredible skills as hosts. 

Ca$h, the regal guard dog (dollar emphases my own)

We finally got to work on the website today, something we've been meaning to do for a while. I really wanted to try coding one by hand -- and I did! -- but it has become far too limited for our needs. So here we are Squarespace, hey hello.

Hard at work on my overedited bicycle

Rachel took her bike into George's and I tried to fix my in the garage. The front disc brake is rubbing up a squeal whose pitch hits right at the range of pain. I was marginally successful, but now the front brakes are way looser than they should be. I think I need to retrue the wheel or straighten out the disc or something because i don't see how I can get the disc brakes any closer without the banshee screams start up again.

The Gallinats -- add dad and another sister in there; they rode across the U.S. last year in just 10 weeks

Headed to the doc's at 3 to check out my knee, which is also been screaming, but in pain, instead of outloud. Hills are killer at this point. I'm not crying when I'm riding but I'm just a point or two on that smiley scale short of it. Anyways the sports medicine guy says it's probably my meniscus acting up again, the scar tissue or something catching on the bone. He shot me up with cortisone and warned I should probably get it "scoped" out when I finish the trip. Whatever, from here on out it's just pain management, nothing to be done now except keep riding.

After requisite visits to REI and Target, we loaded up and headed back over to Neal's. He made tacos. He and Shannon cook mean Mexican. The ground turkey had five kinds of peppers in them and the strawberries for dessert were sprinkled with sugar.

Oh, my mom sent us two more pounds of chocolate of course. Eat up. 

Day 25: Teach to the kids (Cambridge)

Woke up with the sun to go to Becca's school today. We've got to stop doing this four hours of sleep before teaching thing.

We were late getting to school but not for school. We had a full day ahead of us: all five of Becca's 7th-10th grade science classes and a technology careers class to wrap up the day. Each lesson went a little differently- we focused more on 3D printing applications in one class, on renewable energy in the next. We tried our a new demonstration Rachel came up with to explain how a solar panel works. Rachel definitely took the lead on today's, my stomach was still roiling from whatever had me going yesterday on the way to the hot springs. I feel distended, bloated, burned and nauseous. At least we weren't riding.

But they look cool

The kids were good, curious, at least willing to give us a shot. Becca had given us an extensive overview of her kids - many come from broken homes, most won't make it to college, as opposed to the two schools we taught at before. But the kids surprise you, always. Some of the ones Becca least expected to speak up did, like the kid with the mullet (they're bringing them back) who tweaked the bike and compared it to RC cars he'd played with in the past. 

Their tech class printed quite the pretty Sol Cycle! 

With just a lunch break to pause the day, we collapsed exhausted in Becca's classroom at the end of the day, and we all left early to go find a package my mom sent with extra sol cycle parts for the tech careers class, which 3D printed their own bicycles.

Tonight we dehydrated about 7 tons more food: mangos, strawberries, veggie tikka masala for another dinner (recipe below). Tried to make beat chips, those didn't go that well. Bagged veggies and quinoa for the road. I cleaned, sorted and packed, I can't sleep if I don't. We'll go with Becca to Cambridge tomorrow and head back down to Boise from there. 

Day 21: Hello headwind (Vale to Weiser)

We had this great idea the night before to leave the oatmeal for the birds in the morning and make a run for the diner in Vale for a big, real breakfast. We thought we'd just sail down the hill into town and fill up on eggs and coffee. 

We packed up on empty stomachs and we did sail down the hill into a massive and brutal crosswind/headwind combination that just about bowled us back to Burns. And the farmers are out there prepping their fields for sowing so dust is blowing in every direction and the semis gotta make their runs so their whipping past us regardless of the lack of shoulder on the road and blowing us forward if their going our way and slamming us back if they're headed west. Those 10 miles took us like 90 minutes if not more, and I'm an addict so my knuckles are gripping the tape and white cause I haven't had my coffee and I've been awake for three hours now. I'll take a mountain over a headwind any day.  

When we finally reached the cafe it was basically time to eat lunch so now we're two meals behind and my blood sugar has dropped below zero. Thankfully, our beanstalk server immediately poured us coffee and water. The food was actually pretty good: four slices of French toast, a plate of hashbrowns, two eggs. Real syrup on the toast and a lot of butter. Yes a fourth topoff on the coffee, thank you. We ordered caramel pecan apple pie too, desert after breakfast an important staple on this trip after all. 

We left the diner at 2 ( I literally have no idea how time passes on this trip, we show up one minute and and show ourselves out three and and a half hours later). Outside Vale, we start picking out onions on the side of the road, little golden snitches fallen off the truck. I tested some but mine were all kinda squishy. We must have been a couple of days late.

Rode over the Snake River and into Idaho at just about the same time as Hallie Jackson's NBC special on us aired. A million texts and tweets later we were famous or whatever. I don't think I like having my face on television but schools and other programs have been reaching out ever since so for that, put me on the national news whenever you want. Hallie did a fine job, I just wish she (or whoever chose it) hadn't started with my quote about this trip being like a marriage. Whatever, I know what it's like to have sources gripe about the quotes you choose to use.

We stayed at our second warm showers host: Kelley Orchards. Kimmy made a thick and fabulous split pea soup, accompanied by olive bread fresh from the market. They have three kids, between preschool and fourth, a trampoline in the front yard and baby chicks in the basement. Also an adhoc gymnastics room - some mattresses, a hanging bar, a rope. Aaron, the youngest, showed us his moves. Kid can move! Flips on bars and he's just four adorable years old. 

We stayed up to talk to the Kelleys for a while. Ron biked across Canada when he was in college (this year marks 30 years since). And they fed us apple chips, dried from the fruit of their orchard, and eight layer bars, a glory of calories, decadence. Sleep came easy. 

Our tour of the fruit dehydrator with Ron. Order their apple chips but order twice as many as you think you'll eat cause those babies go fast