~ Hagerman Horse Fossils & Box Canyon ~

On Saturday, Josh and I had an adventure in Gooding County. The ultimate destination of our adventure was to trek over to the Hagerman area to learn about the famed horse fossils and to have a hike down and through Box Canyon. However, we began the day's adventure by first going to Wendel because I had read that Wendel would be celebrating its 100 year anniversary. We were thus expecting some kind of celebratory happenings in Wendel, however, we found no festivities. We found, in fact, not much even worth celebrating. Of all the southern Idaho small towns, Wendel is one of the least noteworthy. We decided that we had to experience something in Wendel, and so we had lunch at a Wendellian Mexican restaruant, thereby throwing some dollars into the community. The Wendellian Mexican food was, much like the town, unremarkable.

Compared to Wendel, Hagerman (a much smaller town, population 800ish) is a super cute small town. There is a quirky antique shop along the main road, it features typical 'Old West' building fronts, and is settled in an interesting valley filled with basalt boulders that was formed by the flooding of Lake Bonneville in Utah millions of years ago (as we subsequently learned).

Upon arriving in Hagerman, we immediately went to the National Parks Visitor's Center for the Fossil Beds. Welcoming vistors who walk through the door, is a complete fossilized horse. The horse is positioned so close to the door that it's a little alarming. Josh, in a typical moment of silliness, after almost running into the horse, asked the Park Ranger if there were any horse fossils around that he could check out. Nyuck, nyuck.

The Center is fairly small, but very informative. I found myself feeling enriched from the learning experience. I read everything, learning all about the history and the geology of the region, including the various theories about why there is such an abundance of horse fossils in the Hagerman Valley. Being the only visitors at the Center, the Park Ranger took some additional time to talk with us. One thing I found interesting was the difference between Mastadons and Mammoths (as there are also fossilized Mastadon remains in the area). We also watched an educational video about the Hagerman Valley as it was millions of years ago.

Then, we went to the Historical Museum and perused their exhibits. Josh engaged the museum attendant in conversation for most of the time. That seems to be the best way to experience these small town museums - - the exhibits are few and the most interesting information is contained in the hearts and minds of the local museum attendants..

Adjacent to the museum is a cute cafe. With its discovery, I had wished that we hadn't eaten lunch at the Wendellian Mexican restaurant, as this cafe was a more quality establishment. We did, however, procure some coffees to go. Josh said that his mocha was particularly good and I was very impressed with my drip coffee.

We then made our way to the Box Canyon trailhead for a hike. It was about a mile from the trailhead to the canyon, along a fairly unremarkable trail. As we approached the canyon, Josh and I took the opportunity to poke fun at some overly dramatic signs.

We hiked along the extremely dangerous canyon rim for a while, until we found a trail that took us down into the canyon. There, we hiked a trail that took us along a creek that emerged from the rocks at the beginning of the canyon. It was very pretty. The water was perfectly clear and we could see green algae and colorful rocks under the water. Along the creek was lush folliage of a remarkably diverse variety. I took a ridiculous number of photos.

At some point, I had a rude startling while minding my own business, taking a bazillion photos. I had found these pretty flowers and they all had bugs on them. I was trying to get the perfect photo of the flower and bug, when one of the bugs jumped out and hit me hard in the eye. Ouch!

At another point, while I was taking some other photos, I swept my person along some poisonous plantlife and instantly developed a stinging rashy thing on my leg and hands. Eep!

The trail in the canyon was neat. The creek travels partially underground, and at several points along the trail, it is evident that you are walking over the water. There are a few sink holes in the trail where a person could easily slip and fall into the underground waters.

The trail eventually comes to a diversion dam, where the water pools into a very pretty space along the canyon. Here, there were all of these eerie dead trees in the water. I tried to photograph their eerie-ness...

More photos on my photoset.

Posted by jennifer at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

~ Lake Lowell/Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge

Weather never ceases to amaze me. Take, for example, today. It's the beginning of February, and was absolutely glorious. I don't know the exact temperature, but I'm guessing it was around 50 degrees. And absolutely glorious. Josh and I had planned to go to some museums, but when the day started exhibiting signs of gloriousnitude, we had to take advantage of it.

We took our bikes out to the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge and circumnavigated Lake Lowell. I'm pleased to report that I managed to put together a chilly-weather cycling outfit that kept me comfortable throughout the ride (never too hot and never too cold, but just right).

We started out at the visitor's center where a friendly guide told us a little bit about the national wildlife refuge and the sights. Josh mentioned that he used to work at Lake Lowell, with the Youth Conservation Corps. The two noted that, unfortunately, litter is a problem on public lands. We then perused some of the wildlife learning exhibits before getting all saddled up on our bikes.

This was a very enjoyable ride. It was lovely to be outside enjoying the sunshine, and the route took us along some interesting scenes, one of which was a bison ranch. I managed to attract their attention as I was attempting to take a gu out of my pocket, becoming frustrated at the cumbersomeness of my pocket. Josh later said that I had a cow in front of the bison.

We stopped on the bridge/dam and took in the view. The lake was frozen over, with long cracks stretching through the ice.

The ride was about two hours. Except for a brief moment or two when I experienced a low blood sugar attack, hence the having of a cow in front of the bison when I was unable to extract the gu from my pocket, I felt really good for the duration of the ride.

Photos on my photoset

Posted by jennifer at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

~ autumn outdoors ~

Per the obvious, I've fallen out of blogging, something I hope to rectify post haste. I've got lots of exciting knitting adventures to share with you, but that will have to wait for the next post (and I'm certain you will all be waiting on pins and needles to read all about my knitting!). Right now, I'd like to recount a few outdoor adventures and direct your attention to my view that nature can offer some lovely scenery.

Swan Falls, Snake River Canyon

Several weekends ago, Josh and I treked over to Swan Falls to explore the area on our mountain bikes. While it wasn't the greatest bike ride of all time, it was a beautiful day. The trail we rode was not in the best condition for bikes, mainly because the area has cattle grazing (a lot of cattle grazing, as I inferred from the quantity of manure and cow-prints), but I had some fun moments pretending I was a moo-cow and riding along the cattle-made paths. Also, I am deathly allergic to sage brush, but I think it is a very pretty high desert plant variety and the area was covered in sage brush. At some point, we pretty much gave up on the trail and turned back. We rode our bikes along the dam and crossed to the other side of the river, where we noted a trail in better condition (which we wished we had noticed at the beginning of the adventure). We also read some of the placards about the history of Swan Falls and then loaded into the car to return to town. On the drive back, we took a bit of a detour over to Kuna Cave. I'm not a fan of enclosed dark places, so spelunking has never been appealing to me. Also, we were wearing inappropriate footwear and had no flashlight, so we did not go down, but we saw the mouth of the cave and then turned around. All in all, there was some beautiful outdoor scenery that we experienced that day.

It is almost mid-November and Josh and I are still riding our bikes. The chilly temperatures are not keeping us away from the trails, nor is the darkness. I recently bought a new front light for my bike because we keep getting caught after dark riding on the trails. It's so hard to change one's ways when the sun goes down by 6:00. Last week we rode Hulls and Trail 5, getting caught in the dark right at the end both rides, and then on Saturday we rode Three Bears. Granted, we've been putting in more time at the gym, but I think it's so awesome that we're still going mountain biking in November and am hoping to keep it up as long as possible.

Orchard Trail

Saturday was a good physical activity day. In addition to riding Three Bears, we also went on a nice hike up Orchard Trail. We were biologists and discovered some gross varieties of insects, including a huge disgusting spider that we think was a brown recluse. Yuck! But it was lovely up in the hills and I took a few pretty photos.

Posted by jennifer at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

~ the pros and cons of bartering ~

Now that the weather has finally decided to cease being winter, I have some outdoor recreation fodder for all of you. Before I get into that, I would like to consider the weather for a moment longer. Roughly one year ago, some friends and I participated in a cruiser bicycle parade to celebrate the 27th anniversary of my birth. On that day, one year ago, it was HOT. Like, really really HOT. So hot, that we were in fact, OVERHEATED. I feel inclined to state that it was near to 100 degrees hot, but I am not certain if that figure is fact or fiction. At any rate, HOT is what it was. This year, the same time of year as last year, it has been the opposite of hot. And while 100 degrees is too hot for me to be entirely comfortable in my skin, I also am not a fan of cold. Especially cold when you're expecting it to be hot because you live in the high desert and it's supposed to be hot during the summers. Anyhoot, this weekend the temperatures soared into the 90s and it was lovely not being cold for a change. /End rant about the weather.

Sandhollow to New Plymouth

On Saturday, as the temperatures were expected to be in the HOT zone, Josh and I got up early-ish and headed out for a road ride adventure before the heat set in. I might mention that the day before Saturday, Friday actually, we went on a road ride after I got off work, and I found myself feeling uncomfortably hot in the 95 degree temperatures - - which is what compelled us to get out on a ride while it was still cool on Saturday morning. As we were hankering for something of an adventure, we loaded our crap on the car and drove out to Gem County for some rural riding. At some point, my bicycle computer was acting strangly, and so I am not entirely certain the distance that we covered, but I am confident that it was somewhere around the 30 mile mark. We parked at Sandhollow (which I believe is just a gas station and general store, not an actual 'town', amid lots of ruralness) and meandered over to New Plymouth. I appologize that this post is so much about the weather, but yea...so as we were riding to New Plymouth, an incredibly strong headwind was making the ride significantly slower and more difficult. I had become to feel a bit less confident in my fitness as a result of this wind, the peddling was so strained.

We stopped for lunch in New Plymouth. I'm sure you all remember the Emmett to New Plymouth ride we did two years ago. Well, the deja-vu I experienced when we rode into New Plymouth this weekend was something else. And when we left to complete our loop back to Sandhollow, we passed by some of the roads that we took two years ago and the memories of that ride came back to me very strongly.

One memory of that ride, in particular, that I do not reserve a special place in my heart for was when we were chased by some dogs. If the memory serves, one of the dogs even bit Josh on the ankle (or was it the bike wheel?). Ah, the trials and tribulations of road riding in a rural state! I believe that I have previously articulated my disdain for some people opting to allow their dogs run free. I understand that dogs love running free and love chasing cyclists and scaring the crap out of them, but for me, it is unpleasant. Anyway, I was to experience quite a bit of deja-vu on the ride this weekend, as we had a number of encounters with dogs chasing us.

In other biking news, I've taken Elizabeth out on a few more mountain bike rides lately. I must say, she's a natural! We continue to ride the same loop as before. As I keep mentioning, this is the area of foothills trails that I found my love of mountain biking on. They're wonderful because they're so scenic and interesting, with a good blend of hills and flat sections. Also, they're an amazing amount of fun to bonzai on the downhill.

We rode on Monday evening the first time. Elizabeth seemed to think that I tricked her, but really, I just did not provide her with all of the information. We rode to the base of the Reserve area to wait for the others. I had mentioned "the others" back at my apartment, but she seemed to think that I was proposing a group ride at some point in the future, not that very evening. Essentially, after I had arranged to go mountain biking with Elizabeth, Josh called to say that he and another dude he works with wanted to join us for the ride. While I understand why Elizabeth might have felt not enthusiastic about riding with two dudes on her fourth mountain bike ride ever, I was familiar with the riding level of the other dude and was confident in Elizabeth's ability to surpass him. So anyway, Elizabeth seemed a bit offput at first while we were waiting for the dudes to arrive.

And so we set off! Right from the start, it was apparent that we were all just there to have fun and that it didn't make a shred of difference that there were a variety of ability levels present. And soon after we started, I was quite proud of Elizabeth's effort on the intermediate level hill-climb. This was her second time on this hill, and it is a not at all a beginner hill, and she made it up sections that she walked before. It was awesome. After this hill, there's a nice flatish section and then another big hill. Josh and the other dude were chilling at the intersection before this second hill, and Elizabeth just rode right on by them and put in a big effort on the steep hill. Again, it was awesome. After this hill, there's another flatish section. Then we turned around for our downhill. Let's see...we met up with the dudes around 8:45pm (because it was too hot earlier in the day) and there was a glorious sunset in progress during our downhill. I love mountain biking in the evening! Anyway, Josh and the other dude led on the downhill, followed by Elizabeth and then me. And I will refrain from beating a dead horse on this next point, but the awesomeness that was Elizabeth's downhill is beyond words. She totally kept up with the dudes and rode faster than ever before. Gosh, it was awesome. After the ride, Elizabeth and I hung out on my stoop drinking beers, which is the only way to end a good ride.

But then, yesterday (Tuesday) we rode the same thing again. It was cooler yesterday (the temperature), so we were able to hit the trails around 7:30ish. The ride was very similar to the one the day before, except no dudes. I have to say, I think that it was good to have Elizabeth ride with the dudes - - because no matter how much of a stern drill sargent I try to be, nothing compares to a person trying to keep up with other people. And so on yesterday's downhill, even though she wasn't going quite as fast as when she was trying to keep up with the other dude, Elizabeth was going so much faster than ever before and I was very impressed. If you consider that fourth photo of Elizabeth, you'll notice a huge smile on her face while she bombs down a trail. What fun!

Posted by jennifer at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

~ cornfields ~

Day One of my VACATION was wonderful. Thursday evening, Josh and I celebrated by going swimming at Barclay Bay right when I got off work. I was rather disappointed by the lack of water in left in the Bay from the dam and could not jump off of my normal jumping off spot because the water was a good thirty feet below my preferece. Also, the water was cold, too cold, and unfortunately, by "swimming" I mean that Josh and I acted like big weiners as we inched our way into the water. I made it down to my waist when I decided that it wasn't worth it. Josh was the brave one and fully submerged himself. I occupied myself by snapping some photos of the brave man. Soon after that, we decided to go swimming in the pool at Josh's apartment complex. And there we had a grand time splish splashing around!

Friday morning, we met up for coffee at the Flying M and had our Saturday morning on Friday. We then wandered around downtown. I pondered some expensive footwear and some expensive jeans, being most interested in the former which were on sale. Josh pondered eyewear. We decided to have lunch someplace where we had never before lunched, which was a difficult decision as we have mostly exhausted our downtown possibilities. Finally, we remembered The Milky Way which I can't believe I have never been to before. It was wonderful!

Then we got all organized and headed out on a road bike ride. We drove past Caldwell, parked the car on Weitz Road, and rode along the zig zagged Boise River Road. Weitz wasn't very great, especially since it has just been chipsealed, but once we got onto the Boise River Road section, it was great. We were riding through all of these different farmlands, cornfields, hopsfields, mintfields, and maybe some people don't understand the aesthetic beauty of these areas, but I found them quite lovely. Also, the day was not too hot - - the stars must be aligned perfectly on my vacation, for the temperatures are only supposed to be in the 80's during this time, which is WONDERFUL.

WARNING: The next paragraph contains details on something very GROSS. Depending on your sensitivity, you might want to skip to the following paragraph or refrain from eating and drinking.

There we were, about ten miles into our ride, when all of a sudden I get a little rumbly in my tumbly. I patted my stomach and said to Josh, "...hrm, all of a sudden, my stomach feels a bit off." About ten seconds later, I realize that I am experiencing MASSIVE gastro-intestinal distress and that I needed a restroom IMMEDIATELY. Which was convenient, considering that we were MILES and MILES from civilization. It was the sort of pre-diarrhea GI pain that sent me into excruciating paralysis. And I found that the actions involved in riding my bike and riding up and over little humps and bumps in the road only served to aggravate my symptoms. I litterally thought that I was going to shit myself. And I was so upset about this, unless you have experienced something similar, you have no idea what kind of stress and anxiety I was having. Josh, being a big map person and having a good sense of distance and direction, was certain that there was a town a few miles up the road, IF ONLY I COULD WAIT UNTIL THEN. And I wasn't sure that I could, but I wasn't fond of the alternatives. One alternative, shitting my shorts, wasn't appealing for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I didn't want to ruin my brand new grey cycling shorts. The other alternative, shitting in the cornfields, also was not appealing. I gave careful consideration to that alternative, however, as it was an incredibly desparate situation. As I was imagining the logistics of that alternative, I became overwhelmed with anxiety as I was imagining the possibility of a corn farmer CATCHING ME IN THE ACT of having explosive diarrhea on his cornfields, and I wasn't sure that I could survive such embarrasment. Additionally, it took me a bit of time before I realized, apparently I wasn't in my proper intellectual state, what with the serious diarrhea situation on my hands, that cornfields grow FOOD that humans including myself EAT. And I was having difficulty with the ethics of causing diarrhea to be on these fields. Sure, perhaps there's plenty of other types of crap on the fields, and pesticides, and the corn is high up in the air and engulfed in husks, so maybe my diarrhea would not have damaged that crop, but I wondered if I would ever be able to enjoy the taste and texture of corn again if I went diarrhea on a cornfield. SO CLEARLY, that alternative ceased to be an option for me. Which implied that if I did not find a restroom soon, I would return to option number one. FINALLY, we arrived at the town of Roswell, a town so small that I couldn't find any information on it in the US Census Data website. It was about two blocks long and I did not have much hope that there was a public restroom available. There was, however, a single convenience store and the relief that began to spring into my heart was palpable as I realized that it was open, despite the outward appearance. I threw the door open and calmly asked if they had a public restoom. At hearing the affirmative, I RAN AS FAST AS I COULD, and it was wonderful. Actually, it wasn't entirely wonderful because as I was struggling to lock the door, I noticed that there was a big gap in the door allowing all kinds of noise and airflow directly into the shop, so I was a bit self-conscious about the obviousness of my emergency, but as they say, beggars can't be choosers, and it wasn't really the time and place to be upset that the people in the shop might know that I was having a catastrophic diarrhea emergency. Afterwards, I was a bit hesitant to get too far away from the only known restroom for miles and miles, so I suggested that we take a bit of a break and have a snack from the shop. I ate a bag of Cheetos, which probably wan't the best thing for my stomach, but wow, I sure enjoyed them! Before we left Roswell to continue our ride, I contemplated stealing an entire roll of toilet paper from the convenience store, because they did not sell anything portable, and I almost offered the store clerk a dollar for a roll, but didn't think that I had room in my jersey pocket to carry it. Josh ended up swiping several squares of tissue just in case. And so we continued our ride...

The rest of the ride was wonderful. I was feeling like an entirely new woman, between that and my knee being fully functioning, I kept exclaiming about how great I felt. We rode up onto a plateau and had great fun on some rolling hills. One of the rolling hills I got a bit freaked out on as I approached what appeared to be a crazy steep drop off before me, with the bottom not visible because it was so steep, but it was loads of fun! We did have a couple of run-ins with some dogs trying to chase us - - seriously, I do not approve of these rural folk not restricting their viscious dogs' ability to chase unsuspecting cyclists. Another wonderful aspect of the ride was the fact that, despite being in goathead and thorn territory, we did not have a single flat tire.

That evening, we went swimming at the pool again, and I felt so relaxed and wonderful.

Posted by jennifer at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

~ Hiking the 8th Street Interpretive Trail, Drinking and Riding to Wineries, and costumed parties ~

This past Saturday was a great day for me. On Friday after I got off of work, Josh and I hiked the 8th Street Interpretive Trail. It was a beautiful fall evening. We spent the majority of the hike brainstorming what we wanted to be for halloween. A few months ago, I came up with the idea of being an activist for planetary rights, protesting the demotion of Pluto to less than full planet status. I thought I'd wear a garbage bag fashioned into a dark orb, spraypainted gray, with leggings and a protest sign proclaiming "Pluto is a planet, dammit!" No one seemed to think this as brilliant as I and the idea withered along with the fame and fortune of the once glorious Pluto. At about the time that I had this flash of brilliance, Josh decided that we should go dressed in Mormon temple garments which are not all that attractive. The plan went so far as to investigate the distributor of these elusive underpants, but we discovered that one needs one's Mormon identification numbers to even register one's garment size, so that idea was out the window. On our hike, we threw out hundreds of ideas. We were focusing on couple costumes, like Thomas Jefferson & Benjamin Franklin, Pamela Anderson & Kid Rock, and once he came up with the idea, Josh simply would not let go of the idea of going as Mr. Rogers and the Cat. And I found his manner of persuasion most unconvincing; he kept turning to me and articulating several "mew, mew, mew"s. I dunno, I feel very OVER the whole "going as a cat" thing, even if it's the Mr. Rogers cat. Me, I was obsessed about going as our pre-cool selves. By the end of the hike, we disagreed on the matter as though we were disagreeing over the quantity of some lifesaving elixir to administer to a dying person. Which was kind of ridiculous. Here's some photos of the hike.

And then there came Saturday.

I had been looking forward to the possibility of sleeping in on Saturday morning as a person wandering the Sahara would crave an oasis...my bed, the warm little nook tucked away from the street and city noise, where I have all my sweet little dreams and snuggle in my bundly pillows...yet there was to be none of that on Saturday morning. Somehow, the chi wasn't there. I couldn't find that spot of amazingness that I get lost in every morning when I need to get out of bed to go to work. It was something of a travesty. So I just got up and got ready for my big day.

At 9:30, I picked up Josh and we drove out to Nampa for a coffee at the Flying M coffee garage, which is a very quality place for a morning coffee experience. What makes it super satisfying are the TWO wonderful yarn stores and the THREE great used book stores within walking distance. That downtown Nampa, seriously, people need to appreciate it.

From there, we drove out to the St. Chappelle winery and had a good sampling of their wine selection. I didn't say anything at the time, but I felt that the wine pourer was being much more generous with Josh than with me. Neverthehoo, it was fantastic. Once imbibed, we changed into our cycling gear and set out on a bike ride. I have no sense of direction and didn't consult the map, so I don't have a clue what our route was. I know that we rode for a good distance. After maybe ten miles, we turned onto a dirt road that was difficult for me to ride my road bike on. This led us to the Sawtooth Winery, where we bumped into some folks that we had had an interaction with back at St. Chappelle (they took our photo) and they said that they had been cheering and toasting our cycling up the dirt road. At this winery, the wine pourer was extremely generous, pouring us a third of a glass of each wine...and I think we may have had about seven wines??? Granted, that is not all THAT much wine, but since we were on a bike ride, I feel that my blood stream had opened itself up to all liquids that I delivered to it, in the hopes of remaining hydrated. So the wine quickly made me tipsy. Speaking of tipsy, somehow I fell in love with this silly wine bag with a woman named Tipsy, described as a happy lush. I dunno, had to have been there. We spent some time at this winery outside, where there were some lovely roses that we stopped to smell.

As we mounted our trusty steeds, I was giggly and smily, clearly drinking and riding. We set out down the road and I found it quite a challenge to direct my bicycle straightly. At least it was a vacant farmroad. Oh yes, the scenery! It was beautiful. Farmland, but near to the Owhyees it was stunning, as is evidenced in my photos. At some point, we pulled over for a bio break and I became extremely alarmed when I realized that there was a bunch of idiots on the cliff above us firing shotguns. A dude in a truck pulled over and we all had a conversation about how horrid that was, but yawhatever free country bit, so they assured me that we were too far away for the bullets to hit us, but I was totally freaked. I mean, they were SHOOTING GUNS IN OUR DIRECTION!!!! Yea, I had something of a cow.

As we were driving back into town, we remembered having seen a sign at K-Mart for 40% off on Halloween costumes. We stopped at the K-Mart in Nampa and selected two cheap standard costumes. We then spent some time seperately resting up and then united once more to get ready for the evening. We donned our costumes and makeup and hit the Balcony Dance Club for hours and hours of dancing. I became utterly intoxicated over my vodka redbulls and was a dancing feind.

Posted by jennifer at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

~ 50 Miles from Emmett to New Plymouth ~

Because I am still catching up on my blog writing, I still have a backlog of stories to recount. This one centers around the longest bike ride of my entire life (but, hopefully will not remain such). On Saturday, Josh and I got up early and drove to the town of Emmett, which is not all that far away, but is on the other side of a big overpass which makes it seem like a completely different part of the state. We pulled into the parking lot of an Albertson's grocery mart and utilized their restrooms for our wardrobe changing. From there, we rode our bicycles along a meandering route via empty farming roads. It was pretty early in the day and the ride to New Plymouth was under a pleasant temperature. I felt as though I had so much energy and was just having the greatest time. When we arrived at New Plymouth, we located a market and purchased some food items, which we ate under the shade on the grass of a local religious establishment (apparently, they have no parks in New Plymouth). Having refueled, we set out for the ride back to Emmett. It had become early afternoon and the temperature was begining its ascent into the 90's. The ride back seemed to me much longer in duration than the first part. We basically rode a loop around the Emmett Valley. The second part of the loop, rather than going through farm lands and cattle pastures, took us through cherry orchards, which I found much more aesthetically appealing. It also had a lot more "rollercoaster" sorts of roads which, instead of being long and flat or steady mild inclines, went perpendicular to the rolling hills. I found it great fun. There was an unfortunate incident which we aren't talking about in which we were confronted by an angry dog. But since we aren't talking about it because we have agreed to disagree, I shan't say any more. By the time that we were riding into the Albertson's parking lot, I felt that my body could have ridden many more miles, but my butt was kinda tired of sitting on a bicycle seat. Plus, it was really mutherfucking hot out and my front tire had gotten some kind of flat. Here are a few photos of the trip. As always, there are more on my flickr thingie which you can access by depressing the link to the right. I would link it directly right here, but there is an issue with me accessing such things as flickr right now so I'll leave it up to your own internet prowess to figure it out for yourselves.

Posted by jennifer at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Corner of Floating Feather & Linder

After spending over an hour at the bike shop yesterday morning procuring for myself some bike flat repair accessories & skills, I went on my longest solo road ride to date. Thusfar, I've only gone on short solo road rides, as I try to become accustomed to an entirely new bicycle riding experience. The bicycle is much different than anything I've ever ridden, that it's taken me about three rides to feel comfortable. Also, I'm still traumatised by Josh being hit by a truck on my first road biking experience, so I haven't felt confident about branching out very much. Josh is still out-of-service which has meant that I am alone on bicycling adventures. What is more, on Saturday, I went on a short mountain bike ride and broke off the derailer on my mountain bike. That was something of an adventure trying to test out my utter lack of mechanical abilities. At least I wasn't "very far" from home. Something that became apparent to me while I was walking my broken bicycle down the mountain and towards my home was how very very slow the act of walking compared to biking is. At the bottom of the mountain, a friendly mountain biker dude stopped to try to help me, but his efforts failed. I had a brilliant idea which I gained from perusing one of Josh's history of bicycles books...I used an arm warmer to tie the broken derailer against the frame (so that it wouldn't swing into the spokes), lowered my seat all of the way, clipped one foot into the peddle and held it away from the other leg, and utilized my free leg to push the bike along. This proved to be WAY faster than walking, and much less anoying. And even kinda fun, albeit very silly. SO, with that derailer broken, I had no choice but to go on a road ride yesterday to satiate my bicycling desires.

I'm not sure on how many miles I rode. I think it must have been between 25 and 30. And it was without any breaks and by the time that I was done, I felt that I could have kept riding. I road out Hill Road and then went up Old Horseshoe Bend Road to the end where it merged into a windy climb through some farm houses. When I got to the top of that, I road back down it and went out Floating Feather, past Highway 55, past Eagle Road, past Beacon Light, until I got to a road called Ballentine, which I took a right on and road all the way until Homer, then took Homer to Linder, and made a loop back to Floating Feather.

I was particularly aware of how much faster I was able to ride on my road bike. This is apparently an obvious feature of road bikes that everyone knew about except for me. What is more, I was able to spend the duration of the ride thinking about all of those important topics which have been on my mind recently. By contrast, with mountain biking, all of my energy is focused on mountain biking. Yet it was an almost meditative experience on the road bike. Plus, how satisfying to cover such distance! I also felt that my energy expenditure was streamlined and that my groove more balanced and grounded. I understand now the appeal of road biking...

Posted by jennifer at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

~ Bruneau ~

On Saturday, Josh and I drove out to Bruneau with our mountain bikes. We forgot sunscreen, developed sunburns, and, despite no lack of effort on our part, failed to locate any good mountain biking trails. I may have come off as a little cranky, yet I did have a lot of fun. When we got to Bruneau, we were struck by how unhelpful the rangers were in directing us to some trails. The first thing that we did was to climb the tallest dune.

This was quite challenging. We both wore inappropriate footwear for hiking up a dune and quickly removed said footwear (which tends to be the norm, I believe). It was steep and sandy. I found that it was easier to hike up backwards. Once at the top, we admired the view, ran up and down the edge of ridge, and caused some sand avalanches onto unsuspecting insects. For the descent, we located the steepest portion of the dune and ran down it. This was quite an exiliarating experience. With one leg rotation, we decended a surprising length of dune, and once we started to run we could not stop, the possibility of falling proving more thrill than fear.

And that was that. We located some sunscreen at a visitor's center up the road (but the damage had already been done) and drove down to the edge of the Snake River to locate a wicked mountain biking trail. We unloaded the bikes, changed into our spandex and protective gear, and headed down some kind of restricted sportsman's access road. I became quickly cranky after seeing the dead body of a snake, which indicated to me that we might be venturing into snake territory, and after being somewhat-severely scratched, cut, and poked by these massive bushes with thorns growing all over the road. Incidentally, today my cut legs are all swollen and I have multiple thorn splinters in my legs and hands. Another thing that was making me cranky, was that the sportsman's access road we were riding on was anything but a wicked mountain biking trail. Eventually, we turned around and rode down the highway in search of another possible wicked trail. We located another sportsman's access road which seemed to travel parallel to the River and rode it for a time. This was much better, no fear of snakes and no thorny bushes, but we came to a dead end. Again, we turned around in search of the elusive wicked mountain biking trail. This time we headed towards the horse park of Bruneau and, being careful not to surprise any of the horses, rode down an overgrown road. This area was carpetted with very dead versions of the thorny bushes and I felt some satisfaction crunching over them with my tires without being cut. A persistent difficulty, was that the dead thorny bushes branches kept getting lodged in my spokes and it was kind of annoying. Soon the road became unridable because there were simply too many thorny bush corpses to ride a bike through, and I came up with the brilliant idea of "Hey, why do we need a trail? Let's just ride this way" and by "this way" I indicated towards a space with less thorny bushes, no trail, and lots of sand. It proved really brilliant, my idea, except, you know, the opposite of that and eventually we turned around for the final time and rode back to the car.

In sum, Bruneau is not an area to find wicked mountain biking trails.

Posted by jennifer at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)