Day 8: Ontario, Oregon to Boise, Idaho
Day 9: Boise, Idaho (rest day)
June 28, 2004
Miles: 62 official, 65 actual
Weather: Comfortable the whole way, held there by high clouds;
thunderstorms threatening in the evening long after we arrived in Boise
Today was
a leisurely, slightly uphill jaunt into Boise. Robert had wanted
to start a little early so we planned on going to breakfast before the
official start time. Everyone else seemed to have the same plan
and we ended up being among the last tables served in the
restaurant. Breakfast was among the best so far, though. I
had 3 slices of french toast, 4 strips of bacon and 2 scrambled eggs,
more than enough fuel to get going.
We started near the end of the group and stayed there all day, cruising
comfortably. Here I am at the Idaho state line, about a mile from
the start.
There were a lot of turns today and we missed one of them early
on. By the time we spotted the problem and back-tracked, we had
about 3 "bonus" miles.
The route was mostly through irrigated farm and ranch lands. Here
is a herd of bison (buffalo? -- is there a difference?).
The top of a relatively short climb between two valleys reminded us
that, but for the
irrigation, we are in the desert.
Nobody seemed to be in a huge hurry, this being only 60-some
miles. Daniel joined Robert, Jeff and I after the SAG stop and he
and Robert spent some time in a pace line. I hung back behind
them for the most part, not wanting to compromise my scenery viewing by
having to pay close attention to following a wheel in front of
me. After a while, I sprinted ahead to catch Jeff, who had left
the SAG ahead of us.
The route into Boise took us into the foothills north of
downtown. With the trees and houses, we never saw the
skyline. We stopped for lunch about 3 miles from the hotel at a
restaurant called Richards in a two block commercial area called Hyde
Park. Around our table from the lower left are Daniel, Jeff,
Robert and I.
The hotel has complementary high speed internet access in each room,
which makes it easier to check on what our tour leader is saying about
us on his web
site.
June 29, 2004
Rest day
After 650 actual miles on the road, this is a welcome rest day.
Dianne is a massage therapist who was kind
enough to contact some Boise therapists to set up temporary shop in our
hotel. (Karen is working on something similar for Idaho
Falls.) I spent a lazy day, finishing these pages, getting my
massage, cleaning my bike, getting locked out of my room (the
electronic lock failed--a first for me; luckily I was on the
first floor and the maintenance man and I were able to pop off the
sliding door into the courtyard) and waiting in the laundry
queue. When
my laundry was finally done, thunderstorms had materialized big
time with heavy rain and hail; the locals said it never rains that hard.
Robert, Jeff, Richard and I took a cab to a very nice restaurant called
Mortimer's. Three of us had the tasting dinner, which was
excellent. For a while we weren't sure if it would sufficiently
fill
us up but several plates of delicious bread took care of
that. By the time we finished, it was sunny again and we were
able to walk back to the hotel, my main exercise of the day, along with
a morning walk to Starbucks, where I snapped this photo of the Boise
River from the Broadway Avenue bridge:
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