Day 3 Back Home: A Freezing start to the day

April 24, 2022

the cat's revenge

"What a beautiful day to be riding a bike," Patrick says and continues "blue sky, no dust and more importantly, no wind." Rachel adds, "and it's nice to have spots of coasting." The gradient now is in our favor.

The morning starts at 30F and frost on the tents. Even everything left on the picnic tables is covered with frost. Rachel places a mug on top of an ice chest and watches it slowly slide off. As others start to move and pack up, we fix oatmeal and coffee and around 730am head off for a second breakfast in Midvale 12 miles down the trail.

Two members of the group, Danny and Pete, also started out early and pass us just outside Midvale. We catch up in Midvale as they are doing a wardrobe adjustment.

The temperature is warming up and there is no wind. What took us two hours to ride yesterday We make it at 9am.

Almost to Midvale and a second breakfast at the County Coffee Cabin

This section on the return trip is a bit drier now

This spot was a few miles from where we camped. A Thousand Springs bridge. Had we known, we would have camped here.

Gopher snake! per Bill Shaneyfelt. Rachel had ridden over the tail end of the snake thinking it was a stick. It had curled up when Patrick rode by.

arrowleaf balsamroot, per Bill Shaneyfelt

tufted evening primrose, per Bill Shaneyfelt

Our campsite is by the tree on the far left next to the river

This is a nice trailhead. As we are taking a food break, Jim who is part of the group also not cycling, walks by. He tells us the group also stopped for breakfast at Midvale is probably about an hour behind us.

At mile 8, we leave the trail to ride on the asphalt road paralleling the trail. And at 7.5 miles from Weiser, we see Jon. He is riding toward the group. This change to riding on the road added a few hills and 0.4 miles.

At mile 7.5 we see Jon riding toward the group

We are back at the Weiser trailhead parking lot by 3pm. We take a longer route driving back to Boise and get home around 5pm. Patrick goes to a neighborhood taco truck for street tacos and when he comes back Rhonda and Jon pull up in the van. We thank them for the weekend and make plans to meet up again. Mileage: 43 miles

Our kitties were up to no good while we were gone.

Besides unwinding the TP, one of them found a salami in our food boxes we are preparing to send to Warmshowers hosts and Post Office for the Great Divide ride.

The crowning touch is just below the salami they left a cat toy.

On the rug by the salami package is a cat toy (not very visible but it's there)

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George (Buddy) HallI stayed in Cambridge on the Transam route in 2015, so of course I had to open up Google Earth and look at the geography of the towns you cycled through. Thanks for bringing back some good memories!
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2 years ago

Rachel and Patrick HugensHi George! This was a great "training "ride, and after living in the are for 26 years finally nice to see our own backyard.
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2 years ago