Segment 7: Ride Day 34 - 88 Miles and A Headwind All To Myself

Route: Garland (Tremonton), Utah to Malta, Idaho (Raft River High School)

Distance: 88 miles

Riding Time: 6 hours: 57 minutes (Left by 6:45ish this morning and biked right into the school gym around 2:45pm)

Average Speed: 12.5 mph

Max:  36.9 mph

Weather: It is dry, dry, dry and nice and toasty again... and we had a nice little headwind for most of the ride today. Three Words of Wisdom: Mind Over Matter. :-)

Extra-Special Bonus Stats

Current Elevation: 4518 feet

Elevation Change from yesterday: 150 feet (But we still did a good bit of long, gradual climbing and descending, especially this morning. More level by this afternoon with big mountains on either side and lush green crop circles/farmland in the middle)

Population of Malta, Idaho: 195 people

Since I was a sweeper yesterday (at the back of the pack making sure everyone stays together), today I decided to ride by myself... at least for the first bit. And, as it ended up, I had the whole ride today all to myself. Solo rides can be both an incredible gift as well as a huge mental challenge. Some of the gifts of a ride alone include:

• Lots of thinking time
• The ability to go your own pace
• Picture breaks whenever you feel like it (within reason, of course)
• Bathroom stops whenever there is a mostly-appropriate place for them (or a long break in traffic)
• Sing/yodel/warble as loudly as you want, whatever you want, whenever you want (I'm quite sure that the Pirates of the Carribean theme song has never been trumpeted out so many times in a row before - but wow does it ever work to get you moving!)
• Holler as loud as you want, whatever you want... er... ok, so mostly this is restricted to telling cows who look alone in a field, "Hey you! You're not alone out there! You're never alone! I love you cow!" And usually this is done when cars and other onlookers aren't around. Most of the time. Ok, maybe biking alone eventually results in madness, but at least it's fun! :-)
• No one around to witness when you bike completely off of the road for no apparent reason after miles of managing to stay on the pavement... long straight roads and days of biking will do this to ya! :-)

However, biking alone isn't without it's challenges. Perhaps the biggest one is that the ride often seems a whole lot longer when you don't have conversation to keep your mind off of the amount of time you are spending in the saddle. Without people to distract you, encourage you, pester you, it all has to come from your own head... or else from the folks at the rest stops ever 20 miles (which, by the way, were absolutely wonderful today - thanks so much Melissa, Midas, Tom and Nadine for all your encouragement and delicious snacks!). Also, if you have an overactive imagination like mine, on a ride alone you might end up scaring yourself silly thinking about how long it would take to be discovered if a mountain lion snuck out of the bushes in the surrounding hills and decided to have a little Kristi-snack. It didn't help matters that one of my games was the, Let's-see-how-many-minutes-go-by-before-another-car-passes game. Fourteen minutes is an awful long time. For real. I mean really, imagine how much a big cat could eat in that length of time! Yikes.

In any case, I made it through long stretches of no cars, long climbs, short descents into headwinds, more headwinds, more headwinds, drinking countless bottles of water and misc. sports drinks, eating more raspberries and peanut butter than really appropriate... and eventually I arrived at our home for the night: a lovely gym in a high school in an itty-bitty, tiny town filled with wonderful folks way out in the wide-open wilds of Idaho. Here is a little more about what the day looked like:

Good morning, Garland! (full moon setting)

Ready and waiting.

Route-setting and devotions.

Aaand we're off and riding!

Hmm... yup, looks like a good place for a pit stop.

New Hard Red Winter Wheat storage for LDS members in need of food staples.

250 miles by next Saturday night? No problem. :-)

Ok, there really aren't many people out here...

Only 52.93 miles down?? I swear this odometer must be broken... ok, ok, so that means only 35 more miles to go. C'mon Kristi!! You can do this!!!

Alfalfa harvesting just outside Malta.

A beautiful sight.

Oyee! You Made It!! (at turnoff for the church)

Supper. :-)

Jen and Julie who helped out with making our delicious dinner in the Home Ec. Room.

The gals around the school worked all afternoon to make us a really cool banner!

Aaand, I thought I would get to sleep up here... but there are some lights in the gym that just won't go out for anything. Bummer. So I'm off to find a dark room for sleeping in. Goodnight world! See you again way too soon! :-)