We loaded the truck at 5:45 AM right in front of my room. That was not too hard to take. Each morning when you put your luggage on the truck you are required to sign in. This lets the staff know you are up and essentially on the road. I forgot once but I don’t need to go into that right now. After you have loaded your luggage, you pump up your tires. This is important because it takes significantly more energy to ride on soft tires than it does on tires pumped up to the proper tire pressure. I topped mine off and went to help Mary. As I was removing the pump head from her valve stem, I pulled the valve stem partially off the tube. This ruined the tube. So I changed her tire and put in a new tube. This takes about 15 minutes under good circumstances.

This is not how you want to start a hundred mile day. We were all off to breakfast. After breakfast we returned to our rooms to get our bikes and make one last stop to use the porcelain facility. When Mary went to mount her trusty bike her front tire was flat once again. This tube had a bad valve. So, we changed another tube.

When team “Stop A Lot” finally got on the road, I believe we were the last folks to leave the motel. This was a first.

I think I will sum up today something like this; America the Beautiful! The air was clean and cool. We were on country roads nearly all day and saw dry land, irrigated fields of green, many large dairy farms, wheat fields waving, rivers flowing and mountains in the distance. With tomorrow being the 4th of July, we were all appreciating the beauty that is all across our wonderful country. The views of the Snake River were beautiful. To date, we have ridden 761 miles and climbed 31,892 feet. What a great and diverse land we live in. I wonder how many gallons of water are used each day to irrigate the fields we saw. Steve and I discussed what would happen if water was not available to irrigate. The ground would be parched and not productive. I also wonder how many people it takes to milk all of the dairy cows we say on the large dairy farms. There is so much to learn and it is all so interesting.

As to our ride today, we are getting stronger. The rest day helped in significant ways. We are riding a bit faster. However, it becomes clear when we need to eat because our speed drops significantly. As soon as we stop and eat, our faster speeds return immediately. Everyone was in good spirits all day. Due to our late start, we passed a number of riders that we don’t always see. That was fun also. We are feeling sorry for a rider named Nancy. She has had 9 flats since we started on our trip.

We ate dinner tonight at the Sizzler Restaurant. It was good and we really chowed down. On the way back to the restaurant we stopped by Fred Meyers to pick up more Pop Tarts. We get to sleep in tomorrow. We only have 39 miles to ride tomorrow. Some years the bike riders have ridden in a 4th of July Parade.

Well, I’ll say goodbye for now. I once again want to thank all of my friends who have been emailing me. You encouragement means a lot to me. I feel as though I have never left home. Happy 4th of July to you.

Click here to see more pictures from today!