Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for the ‘Idaho’ Category

The trip was a success! I completed over 4,263 miles from Yorktown, VA to Portland, OR and then down the coast to San Francisco, CA between May 26, 2009 and August 19, 2009 (86 days). I met many amazing people along the way, pedaled through 13 states, and saw a lot of spectacular scenery. I feel like I’ve now seen some of the United States, but there is still a lot remaining to explore.

The first few states were rather ‘familiar’ as far as scenery goes – I hadn’t been to Kentucky before, but western Kentucky was quite similar to Virginia with a lot of horse farms and open fields. Eastern Kentucky was a little more poverty-stricken and was cluttered with trash on the sides of the roads. The roads were in poor condition with potholes (we had to be very careful to pay attention and not hit one)! I picked up a staple from the road in eastern Kentucky and got my first flat tire. We only briefly saw Illinois (I think we spent 2 days biking through southern Illinois), but we met some really fun people, namely two motorcyclists who invited us to their home to camp outside, grill, and play in the lake. Also, we saw Superman in Metropolis, Illinois, which was off-route and not planned. As it happened, we had bike problems that day and had to hitch-hike 70 miles to a bike shop to get a new chain for George’s bike. Missouri was very humid and the Ozarks were filled with hills.

About 40 miles outside of Springfield, Missouri, my shifter cable broke and I wound up hitching a ride with to a bike shop. For the first time since we left on May 26^th, I was in civilization again. Springfield was a large city (from what I could tell), and they had a Chipotle and Starbucks. That was exciting! We pedaled through Missouri in six days and then when we reached Kansas, we switched our sleeping and biking habits. Instead of riding during the day, we rode at night and slept indoors at fire stations, libraries, and churches during the day to avoid the 115-degree heat and humidity. It worked fairly well, except that I biked the entire state of Kansas carrying a viral infection, only to realize it when I entered Colorado.

Just 70 miles east of Pueblo, Colorado in the hamlet of Arlington, I found myself extremely sick and unable to continue pedaling. I stopped and told the guys I couldn’t go any further. This was my last opportunity to find someone who could help me – there were approximately three houses and a few shady trees. I stopped, rested, and when I wasn’t feeling any better, I walked to a house to see if anyone was home who could drive me to a doctor. A nice man, by the name of C.D. Anderson said he’d give me a ride to Ordway, CO (25 miles west). We rode there and the clinic said I needed to get to a hospital, but the next closest one was in Pueblo. He gave me a ride all the way to Pueblo, another 45 miles down the road. There, I admitted myself to the Emergency Room and spent the next five and a half hours receiving saline and anti-nausea medicine. I slept on and off until 6:30 that evening when I was released. Lucky to have distant relatives in the area, they came and picked me up and they took me to their home in Westcliffe, Colorado.

A few days later, thanks to the generosity of a complete stranger, Cindi from Westcliffe, I had a car to borrow and was on my way to visit a friend from college. Unfortunately, I got sick again and at this point was very frustrated, as I didn’t know what was wrong with me. This was the only point in my trip where I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to continue if the virus didn’t get out of my system. I slept and rested for another day or two and then went whitewater rafting (already had reservations made) and then drove to Estes Park to see the beautiful Rocky Mountains and take photos.

I finally got on my bike again almost two weeks after getting sick and was now solo pedaling to meet Chase, my new riding companion, who was a few days ahead of me now. Unexpectedly, I spent a few nights in Salida, Colorado when I met Mike. He showed me around town and then guided me up my first 14er, Mt. Elbert. It was an incredible experience to be on the highest mountain in Colorado and one of the highest in the lower 48 states! After a day of recuperation, I climbed 26 miles up and over the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass at 11,312 feet! There, at the top of the pass, Chase found me and I rode down the other side of the mountain and then hitched a ride back to Pitkin where he and his family had rented a cabin for a few days. We spent a couple days in Pitkin and Ohio City with Chase’s family before we hit the road again on July 14^th.

The adventures really picked up once Chase and I met and started riding together – we found ourselves first taking a short-cut from Telluride, CO to Moab, UT in two days and meeting a really nice woman by the name of Lauren. As it turns out, she invited us to have dinner with her (grilled steak and peppers along with pickled asparagus) and sleep in her camper van just outside of Paradox, CO. Then we met Wayne, who gave us a lift from La Sal Junction to Moab and then into Arches National Park, where we toured the park in the afternoon together. It was a great time and nice since Wayne hadn’t had an opportunity to see the park before! After Moab, we rode down to Monticello (I had to pick up mail) and then onward to Hite, UT (Lake Powell). This was one of the worst days (from Blanding to Hite) as the heat was cranked up and the 88-mile stretch without services was brutal. We each carried 1.5 gallons of water and pedaled all day to get to Hite campground.

What would have been a long journey across the deserts of Utah and Nevada turned into a spontaneous adventure where we found ourselves 700 miles north getting dropped off in Yellowstone National Park. We caught a ride with Jack and his 7-year old who were on their family vacation. We were like family for 3 days and it was amazing. We had such a great time! Once we parted from Jack and David, we left to go to West Yellowstone where we ran into five cyclists that Chase last saw and rode with in Missouri! Who knew we’d end up back on the Transamerican Route in Montana weeks later and run into them!

A few more mile of pedaling as we rode through Montana to Missoula where I bumped into my best friend’s ex-husband in a bike shop, saw my last chiropractor of the trip (6^th one), got my second (and last) flat tire, and did my last long uphill climb (before reaching the coast) of 46 miles over Lolo Pass into Idaho! Just into Idaho, we met a great family from Frederick, Maryland who invited us to eat dinner and camp with them. Thanks again to nice people, we camped with a couple from British Columbia at a campground in Washington, camped on someone’s front porch in Walla Walla, Washington, and found ourselves chased out of a campground after we spotted three large snakes within five minutes. Needless to say, we camped on the side of the road that night only six miles from the campground, as we were exhausted from riding 106 miles in the blazing heat with headwinds!

Finally into Oregon, we were excited to reach Portland. However, it wasn’t over yet! We hit horrible headwinds in Columbia River Gorge (apparently the windsurfing capital of the world), yet no one gave us a heads up about this! We battled the headwinds for about 100 miles or so (on and off with the intensity), but once we were within 150 miles of Portland, the winds picked up even more! Chase wasn’t enjoying it. Nor was I. We agreed to hitch a ride the last 90 miles into Portland so we wouldn’t pedal away for two more days to get there. Instead, we wanted to enjoy seeing Portland before having to continue down the coast (or in Chase’s case, before he had to fly home).

On August 9^th, we reached the Pacific Coast at Cannon Beach, Oregon. I had 3,570 miles at this point. Our last evening of the ride (coast to coast), we camped in a city park as all the campgrounds were full and the motels/hotels were all booked. To make our story more fun, we camped illegally (in a city park, as there was nowhere else to go) and the next morning the police came at 5:55am asking us to leave.

The last leg of the trip, I rode solo down the coast from Nescowin, OR to San Francisco, CA. I met a lot of really nice people along the way and rode with several groups of riders as well. I met four motorcyclists from Victoria, British Columbia in Bandon, OR and then we reunited again in Brookings, OR the next day, 100 miles later. It was fun to see the same faces again on several occasions and we really had a great time exchanging stories and hanging out at the campsites together.

At last, I reached San Francisco on August 19^th at six o’clock in the evening after riding my final 72 miles. From August 19^th until August 25^th, I spent the time in San Francisco sampling some of the most delicious ethnic food while hanging out with one of my best friends — Iman, who flew from the east coast to meet me! On August 25^th, we departed on a train back across the country. Again we met many interesting people, including Thane and Brenda of Sioux Falls and the friendly Amtrak staff. My arrival into DC was mixed – the trip was officially over and I would have to re-acclimate to life back home and return to my full-time desk job.

Sunday, August 2nd – Kooskia, ID to Chief Timothy Campground, WA (10 miles into Washington State)

It was a good thing we didn’t camp on the grass at the city park last night since I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of sprinklers going off everywhere in the park. They must have been all hidden in the grass and automatically come up at a certain time. It was amusing nonetheless, because the cop had driven by earlier in the evening and didn’t stop to talk to us, so maybe he thought we’d learn we weren’t supposed to camp there once we got soaked by sprinklers. Who knows? Either way, we didn’t get in trouble for overnighting in the city park and we were told the cop was cool (by the cashier at the grocery store), so we weren’t worried.

The alarm didn’t go off on my GPS this morning because the batteries were too low, so that was annoying. We woke up an hour later, at 6:30 instead of 5:30 and packed up and rolled out of town at 7:45 this morning. We were aiming to do 100+ miles and head past Lewiston and into the state of Washington.

We breaked at a small town up the road (7 miles) and grabbed a donut and lemonade for fuel, then we continued to Orofino where we bought meat and cheese to put on bagels. There Joe (one of the guys from a couple days ago) caught up to us, but Geordie wasn’t with him. They had split this morning as Joe wanted to finish sooner and he knew we were taking a short-cut across Idaho and Washington to get to Oregon faster. Geordie was going to continue on the transamerican route and finish in Astoria, Oregon. So Joe rode with us the rest of the day to Lewiston and I went ahead for the last 10 miles or so leading into Lewiston. Turns out Chase wound up with a front flat tire a few miles outside of town and he tried fixing it, but didn’t have any great luck. His tire seems to have a slow leak and the second tube he put in also didn’t seem to work too well, and he has yet another flat.

In Lewiston, we refill on water and then about 2 hours after I got in, we depart to continue riding a little further down the road to see how far we get. Not even 7 miles outside of Clarkston, Washington (we crossed into Washington between Lewiston and Clarkston when we crossed the Snake River), did Chase wind up with another slow leak on his front tire. He pumped it a few times and continued riding – it made it far enough to get us another 4 miles or so down the road to a campground next to the river. We pulled in there and debated whether or not we wanted to pay the ridiculous $22 campsite fee for tents. We decided to ride through first and check out the campsite and see if any were available. As we rode in, we met a couple (Patrick and Theresa Peters ) walking their cat (yes, a cat) and so we stopped to chat.

Their cat is awesome and is on a harness with leash as they’re on a 10-week vacation around the States. They’re from Vancouver in British Columbia and they offered to let us camp on their campsite and so we rolled on over there and set up while they went for a cat walk around the campground. Patrick and Theresa got us cold drinks and some watermelon and cantelope which was amazing. We sat around chatting for a bit and then I went off to shower. By the time I got back, they had already gone to bed, but had told Chase we could use their propane stove if we needed/wanted to cook anything. So I got out my chicken and broccoli rice which I’ve been carrying since Kentucky probably and decided to make that. Now I’m completely exhausted and going to hit the sack – we covered another 87 miles today, so not too shabby. Unfortunately, tomorrow will start out with Chase trying to track down the leak in his tube/tire since his front tire is completely flat again.

Saturday, August 1st – Wendover Campground, ID to Kooskia, ID

Woke up at 5:30 and got rolling early so we would have time to check out the Jerry Johnson Hot Springs 8 miles down the road, so we rolled out of the campground around 6:30am and got to the hot springs around 7 or so and started to hike in. We found all three hot springs and took a dip in the last one which seemed to be the biggest one. It was neat and a first for me – I’ve only ever been in a hot spring where they made it a pool, like a swimming pool. That was in Peru last year on the way to Machu Picchu.

We left the hot springs around 9:45 and continued downstream on Route 12 – a scenic road that runs by the river all through Idaho. It was nice except for the fact that there was a lot of traffic (RVs, and people on vacation) as well not having any shoulders really, so that was a bit frustrating. We stopped in the early afternoon in one spot to dip our feet in the river and cool off a bit – the temperatures during the day were over 103 degrees. The last 15 miles were pretty tiresome and we were exhausted. I think it was probably just the heat and trying to readjust to such hot temperatures. We ended the day of riding with some 85 or so miles and stayed in Kooskia’s city park – just camped out without tents under a pavilion.

For dinner, we wound up buying some pasta, alfredo sauce, and rotel and mixed all of that together and ate an entire bag of pasta! We were hungry and polished it all off. Off to bed around 10pm in hopes of getting an early start in the morning.

Friday, July 31st – Missoula, MT to Wendover Campground, ID

Today was a bit of a slacker day – we got a really late start, but mostly intentionally. We had planned to start about mid-day and just ride to get over our last major pass, Lolo Pass. So we slept till about 9/9:30 and then started to get organized and we did a last load of laundry at Brent’s before heading into Missoula around 1pm for Chase’s last Pita Pit experience. Then we mailed off a few odd things to shed some weight and then we were going to hit the road, but Chase realized he hadn’t yet replaced the broken sunglasses, so he went to the mall and then an outdoors store to try to find a decent pair. And then finally we left Missoula around 4pm and had the next 40 miles to climb slowly over Lolo Pass.

The riding wasn’t too bad actually – it was very gradual and we ran into Joe and Geordie just about 7 miles from the top of Lolo Pass at a RV park. They were taking a break and we had just stopped to refill on water. The guys were only going a few more miles up the road before calling it a day. We wanted to get over Lolo Pass and then down into Idaho before ending the day, especially since we’d had such a late start.

At the top of Lolo Pass, we changed into Pacific Time and gained another hour, but lost an hour of sunlight so to speak. Instead of the sun setting around 9:15pm in Missoula, it would now set around 8:15pm in eastern Idaho. After the pass, we rode another 20 miles or so downhill and then it flattened out for a bit – but was still easy riding. We had hoped to make it to Jerry Johnson’s Hot Springs at mile marker 152, but we pulled into Wendover Campground to refill on water (we had seen a sign as we came down into Idaho about last stop for gas and all services for the next 65 miles), so we thought we’d better be safe and have plenty of water in case we didn’t find any for the next 65 miles or so.

We stopped into the campground and were instantly greeted by some folks who had just pulled in shortly before us. They invited us to stay for dinner (spaghetti and garlic bread) and to set up our tents on their campsite since they were all sleeping in an RV. It was amazing – awesome spaghetti and company. Turns out the McDonald’s (Mac and Lauri) are from Frederick, Maryland and just doing a 3-week adventure around the country with their two kids Marley (9) and Tyler (13). So we just sat around and chatted and then Tyler made a fire and we all made smores which were yummy. Finally we called it a night around 11:45pm or so (in Pacific Time).

Most random question about the bike trip:
Mac: “So how do you keep it platonic?”

Chase/Kiki: “Umm, wow. [Chase farting] – “well that answers that” – Kiki

Wow…that was funny and definitely an odd question and first question ever for this trip.