Day 11 - Mountain Home to Twin Falls, ID

Today: 97 miles, 2833 feet of climb
Cumulative: 799 miles, 35845 feet of climb

There was no tailwind with us today. It was a long 97 mile day in the saddle for us and we had to earn all the miles this time (a century ride with a side trip to Dairy Queen for lunch). I rode with Mark W., Dave, and Jeff today. Mark K. is still nursing a sore knee and decided to ride at a slightly slower pace. However he beat us to the hotel since both Mark W. and Dave had a flat tire today. Never the less, we made good progress and finished in less than six hours of riding time.

Today’s route mostly paralleled I-84, although we never got on the freeway itself. We were on old Highway 30 (I think the same road we started riding on in Astoria) and a bunch of farm roads all day. We did not have any traffic until the outskirts of Twin Falls.

It was another cold start and the arm warmers and vest were out. We have a really good rider with us named Jay, who is the 2009 Arkansas state road racing champion, and he pulled us the first twenty eight miles at an average pace of 20MPH+. Then the sun came out and it got warm. The four of us rode the rest of the way by ourselves, taking turns pulling in the front of the line.

Early morning

At the start of the day we were passing farms on both sides of the road. They were being irrigated and the only sounds we could hear were our tires on the road and the psst, psst, psst sound of water being sprayed on the crops.

The train conductor toots "hello"

After we reached the town of Glenn Ferry the terrain turned more arid and all we saw were treeless brown hills with a nice river valley on the right. A train went by and the conductor honked his horn to say hello.

Jeff

After leaving the river valley there was nothing but scrub around us with brown hills on the horizon. We did pass one point where there were some fossil beds. In this area there were brown hills on one side of a river valley and a mountain of large black lava rocks on the other side. Apparently 3.4 million years ago, the lava flowed out and damned up the river creating swamps and lakes, whereby bones of beaver, otter, pelicans, and other water birds were deposited.

Empty road

Late in the day we reached the Snake River Canyon, where Evil Knievel attempted to jump over the canyon in 1974. We crossed the bridge and were in Twin Falls at the end of a long day.

Snake River Canyon

It was a good day for all and we are about 800 miles complete. There is still a long way to go, but we're making progress. Although the journey is more important than the destination. Tomorrow should be a piece of cake. Approximately 38 miles into Burley.

Today's route:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/38872946