The beginning of our ride today gave us 30 miles of descent into White Bird Idaho. Then a 7 mile climb and another descent into Kooskia. The further we moved into the heartland of Idaho the more smoke we saw and had to breathe. Following is a photo of the smoke we climbed into during that first 30 miles.
We met Gay in Grangeville to refuel, and also to find that the truck had a slow leak on the front left tire. As this is written it is still leaking slowly. Given that today is Labor Day we could not find a place to have it repaired. So we are in hopes that tomorrow morning the tire will still be holding enough air to pump up with our bicycle pump and then drive to a repair station up the road. Or, use the spare tire for the first time.
As we approached Kooskia we found ourselves in wheat farm land. As BJ would say, it is a lava bedrock with soil that originated from rich composition. It literally looked like Kansas. That is, until we dropped off into a canyon descending a mile at 12% grade that had our rims too hot to touch. It was a stressful mile. BJ hit a 9.5 on the pucker meter. I rounded a corner watching BJ behind me overcook the turn and narrowly missing a 200 foot vertical fall over the edge. Later BJ was viewed on the side of the road wiping his shorts clean while turning his rear tire to cool it off.
Then we arrived in Kooskia to find that Gay had found the hotel that BJ had had reserved and was frantically waving to us to warn us not to go there as it was not a kind looking place. Miraculously Gay had already found a beautiful wood log cabin and already had it rented. BJ cancelled the other reservations. All turned out well.
Two days to go.
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