Day 17 - Riggins to Grangeville: The Long and Winding Road.......says Jack not The Beatles - Off To See the Wizard

June 14, 2014

Day 17 - Riggins to Grangeville: The Long and Winding Road.......says Jack not The Beatles

Rested and feeling refreshed we headed out.......loaded up on Pop-Tarts and Green Tea (not quite the same huh.. Ricky - we'll do better). We were only down the road two miles before we had to stop and do this....

So much for waiting out the rain....looks like it is going the direction we are..north'ish - we have rain in the forecast until Wednesday. Better get used to it. Riding today with rain gear the first 30 miles to White Bird was actually fine. Kept us dry and warm.

Leaving Riggins....looked like this pretty much all day

When we arrived in White Bird the streets were lined with benches and hundreds....well several folks were watching as we rode into town. They must have heard we were coming.......turns out they were not looking for us but for the Rodeo Parade. It was the 25th annual White Bird Rodeo. We had passed the rodeo site a few miles back and noticed that was were all the horse trailers we saw yesterday went. Seems they were rained out last night and today wasn't looking all that good.

The ride to White Bird was a nice level to slight (very slight) down. We were there in just a little over two hrs. By this time, our Pop-Tarts have completely worn off.......they do not work for us like oatmeal.....guess we can't roll with the race crowd!! The first thing we did was look for food. We wanted some Gatorade. We couldn't find any...we did find a bar that was open (they all were..lots of bloody Mary's being consumed) that was serving breakfast. We had a full meal. We are getting comfortable with eating and biking....and we knew we had a 1600ft and a 10 mile climb coming.

By the time our food came......insert...took a very long time, we had to watch the parade as it was going right up Old 95 Road the direction we were to go.

There were about 25 of these kids dressed as Native Americans -they do some sort of routine with the horses?

Now we have been here nearly a hour and it is time to go...we get behind the last official auto and ride out of town to the waves of the entire crowd! Nice send off.

The first few miles of the climb were not so bad but after about five miles I just crashed for some reason. Don't know if it was lack of food, electrolytes or just plain frustration with going so slow for sooooooo long. The grade was not terrible, there were a lot of switchbacks and then there were these long periods of what looked like you were going down but you were actually going up 3-5%!! They just demoralized me....

I was done. Was so upset I told Jack ...I am done...done done as in finished. I was so tired of going only 3-4 mph! Well this wasn't good for him to hear as it put him in a real funk....negative feeling/behavior are contagious. We started drinking some water with electrolytes added, had a banana and things started looking better. The road also started going more in a visual up which helped me!! We finally made it to the top after three hrs. By now it is really cold so the down was a little crispy. We had a great day for this ride....no wind, light rain, cool..no hot sun. It would have been even more difficult with any of those ingredients.....and if our legs were not rested, says Jack!!

Here is a picture of where we came up but it just doesn't give you the feel for the hill.

We came from way down in the bottom of the center of this.

Flowers on the way Up. I learned that the purple ones were a food source for the Lewis & Clark expedition. They are like a wild onion.

Nearly There! Jack would like it to be known that he is zipping his jacket - NOT taking a nature call.

The ride into Grangeville was fun and made up for the bad time I was having earlier. It is cold and expected rain tonight so we are in a Super 8 Motel. It is kinda fancy.....and they said it was the last room available in town. Thank you to my dear husband for calling in the reservation from White Bird!! Because it was the last room available we have the 'Hot Tub Suite' guess where I will be in a short while!

Tomorrow we head for Powell, ID and it seems that WiFi and any services will start to be few and far between. There will be a stretch that is 60+ mi where there are No services. You may not hear from us for a day or two. Until then.....Good Night

Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 607 miles (977 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0