Day 54, Friday, June 13
This was one of those days that the miles melt away. We have not had many of those.
It started inauspiciously. I woke up around 5:00 AM and thought I could get 30 more minutes of sleep, so I rolled over and went deeply asleep. I woke with a start at 5:32. It was so light I thought I had overslept. John had been calling my name from his tent, trying to make sure I was up, but I never responded. I usually answer right away, so he started running terrible scenarios through his head. He said he was wondering how he would tell Lynn I died of a heart attack
I had not died, so we packed up and started riding. Obviously the first order of business was coffee and something to eat, so we stopped at a nearby Maverick, the Casey's of the West. Like Casey's, they have excellent coffee, ground and brewed before your very eyes in fancy machines with many choices of beans and roasts. The country may be going to hell, but at least we have good coffee.
We headed out of town on some quiet county roads. Like much of the Midwest, county roads are generally laid out in a grid in this part of Idaho, with roads running north to south or east to west. There is no shoulder, but with little traffic and long sight lines they are relatively safe.
However, the shortest distance for us was US 91, running diagonally across the grid. Someone at the brewery the night before told us it is a good road to rideS, so after a few miles on county roads we jumped over to the highway. With a slight downhill gradient we covered the 45 miles to Chubbuck by lunch time.
In Chubbuck we found a deli right on our route. It was a bit of a Subway knockoff, but the ingredients seemed fresher to me. It was good to just get out of the sun, have a cold drink, and eat a meal that was not pizza or pub fare.
We had thought we might stay in Chubbuck for the night, but we also knew American Falls was in reach if we felt good. We did, so after lunch we set out again. From Chubbuck we rode on frontage roads paralleling I-86.
The riding became much more difficult, with the afternoon sun in our faces and some rolling hills through an industrial hellscape.
Eventually the frontage roads flattened out, running through farmland, but we were still in the midday heat with no shelter anywhere to take a break.
Random stretches of the frontage road were gravel. As nearly as we could tell, it had all been paved at some point, but as the asphalt deteriorated they changed some bits to gravel. At one point, John rode through a deep pile of gravel that caught his bike, turned it sideways, and caused him to crash. The bike was unharmed, but he scraped up his elbow and knee. He cleaned up with some antiseptic wipes and applied some ointment and we rode on.
Our destination for the night was the county fairgrounds east of American Falls where there was a campground. The campground had potential, but amenities were lacking. There were no picnic tables, and the restrooms next to the campground were locked. We had to walk a couple of hundred yards to the ones near the rodeo grandstand. There were electrical hookups for RVs, so at least we could charge devices.
As we were sitting on the ground, contemplating how dismal the campsite was, and how hot and dirty we were, a couple drove up in a pickup truck. It was the manager of the fairgrounds (I think his name was Al) and his wife. John had called him earlier for information, so he knew we were there. He had come to open the restroom and showers for us.
Al and I walked over to the showers so he could show me how to lock up when we left. Meanwhile, John chatted with his wife. It turned out Al was going to take the afternoon off and had no plans to come over. But he told his wife about these two men riding bicycles across the country and she told him, "Al, you have to go open up the showers for them."
The showers really perked us up. It was a little too far into town for dinner so we went to the convenience store a half mile away for bad pizza. John bought some beer. We took it back to the fairgrounds and drank it in the shade on the east side of the restrooms and showers. As John's girlfriend Jenny told us, when we slept on the sidewalk back in Shoshoni, Wyoming, we are one step from becoming hobos.
True to our hobo nature we decided not to pitch our tents. There was a covered porch on the west side of the building. When the sun was low enough not to be too hot we set our sleeping bags out there and went to sleep.
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