Day Thirteen: May Family Ranch Reunion Center to Clyde, Idaho

June 22, 2019

It was 35 degrees this morning. I put all my clothes on again and headed out, after returning a large bath towel I'd borrowed yesterday. I was pitiable enough when describing my tiny "camp towel" to Mrs. May that she'd loaned me one of theirs, even though that wasn't included in the $40 "indoor camping" price.

It was an easy ride, mostly downhill. I continued to follow the river. It was very scenic.

I pulled over at a gas station a few miles outside of Challis, and sat on a bench outside. An older man walked up and asked about my ride. Something was a little off about him. He seemed surprised that I was "only" averaging 80+ miles a day, and not 100. Apparently, riding a bike less than 100 miles a day was unimpressive. This, coming from a guy who reeked of cigarette smoke, and was wheezing the entire time he talked to me. Then I noticed his cap. It contained an acronym that revealed that the guy was a believer in the most ridiculous conspiracy theory in memory, which I won't further publicize, even on a blog with a readership as minuscule as this one.

I stopped in Challis at a combination supermarket/hardware store/outdoors store. Almost no one was in the place, which suited my mood. I didn't feel like listening to loud conversation at a convenience store. I went to the deli, which kinda flowed into the hardware store, and had the girl there make me veggie pizza. She was pleasant, and the pizza was good. I had a leisurely late breakfast sitting at one of the plastic tables in the hardware section.

I was now on US 93. It was alright, although the shoulder was minimal. There was the usual traffic of pickup trucks pulling travel trailers to who-knows-where, but they were mostly polite, and gave me plenty of room.

A few miles before I was supposed to turn off onto "the emptiest of empty roads", I came upon the scene of an undoubtedly fatal crash involving the head-on collision of a horse trailer and an SUV. It was terrible. The victims had already been removed - later I found out the crash had happened the night before - but I was shaken by this scene. I pulled into the Cottonwood campground just down the road.

There I met a California man who was on a van-camping trip with his wife and teenage sons and his in-laws from the Philippines. He seemed slightly aggravated with his family for moving slowly as they washed their camp dishes, refilled water bottles, etc. He'd done a lot of bike touring before marrying - he adopted a wistful tone when telling me this - and he and I talked about touring while he prodded his family to hurry. I told him about my disc brake problems, and he helped me locate the spot where the rear disc brake was rubbing. It's almost impossible to check this without an extra pair of hands, or a bike stand. The verdict: As I suspected, the rear disc is slightly bent.

I left and in a mile or so, at tiny Ellis, turned onto "the emptiest of empty roads." It was as empty as promised. For the next hundred or so miles I'd be on this road, which winds its way through ranch lands.

Ten miles later in tiny May I was surprised to find a cafe, which wasn't on Google Maps. Since this would be the last commercial establishment of any kind for many miles, I went in and had a grilled cheese sandwich and french fries. The owner/waitress was a young woman who told me she only kept the place open from May to November. She was from the area, and gave me some good info on my route for the next few days.

I continued on the empty road. I saw occasional ranch houses, usually pretty far off the road. There were open range cattle wandering onto the road. That was about all there was to see.

After several miles, I saw a woman working in the garden of one of the rare houses close to the road. I called out "hello!" and asked if I could have some water. I initially handled her my bottle, but she welcomed me into her kitchen and we talked briefly. She had a couple of friendly "outdoor dogs", who were supposedly not allowed inside, but of course tried come in anyway when I entered, and an old, wheezy Dachshund who was the "inside dog." The lady added some ice cubes from her old-fashioned tray to my bottle, then wished me luck on my ride - "And don't bother opening and closing the gate; a skinny fellow like you can slip through the side."

The pavement ended. My map indicated that it was the start of an eighteen mile dirt section. It was a steady climb on the dirt to about 7,000 feet, although the climb was so gradual that I was surprised when I reached a lake and a sign that read "Summit."

I saw no vehicles or people. The sky would grow dark and a few drops of rain would spatter, then the sun would come out. Earlier in the day it had briefly gotten hot, so I'd taken off the rain jacket, which I'd been using to keep me warm. Now I alternated between putting it on and removing. Finally I grew tired of that and just left it on. It was getting cold again anyway as I descended.

During this period I experienced the first intense loneliness and homesickness of the tour. I entertained idle thoughts about radically altering my route. Instead of meandering across Wyoming and South Dakota and Nebraska, perhaps I could somehow take a more direct route to Iowa, where I had friends and in-laws. From there I could drop down to Missouri and get on the good old Katy Trail, ride that most of the way to Illinois where we lived for several years, then reach home in about three days riding across Illinois. After a reunion with my wife and cat, I could take the TransAmerica Trail to Yorktown Virginia, reversing the direction of my 2006 coast to coast trip. I was 99.9% sure I wouldn't do anything like this, of course.

I started looking for a place to camp. The idea of rough camping up here wasn't appealing, and once the pavement ended I was making good time, and I had plenty of sunlight left. So once I passed 100 miles for the day, I just kept riding. Maybe something would turn up.

It did. I saw what appeared to be a campground, even though it certainly wasn't on my map. There were tents, travel trailers, and people milling around. The sign read "Amy's Campground." Everyone seemed strangely well dressed. I asked a lady if this was, in fact, a campground, and she told me that it was private property owned by the Amy family, and that a wedding had just taken place. I asked if I could pitch my tent, and, after looking me over, and deciding that I looked either trustworthy or possibly just pathetic, she went to find "the man in charge", who, it turned out, was Delwin Amy, the father of the groom.

He was in a good mood, and graciously showed me where I could set up. So I did that quickly - the campground was at 6,000 feet and it was getting cold now as the sun went down. I cleaned up as best I could, ate a a bag of M&Ms for dinner and went to bed, just as the music from the now-underway wedding reception started blaring, something I somehow had not considered when I impulsively chose this spot rather than some quiet, but lonely, location on public lands back up the road.

Today's ride: 106 miles (171 km)
Total: 1,042 miles (1,677 km)

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