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We had hoped to get an early start today, but we looked at the radar after we got up and saw a big storm cell coming up from the south. There wasn’t much of anything else behind it, so we decided to wait an hour or so and went over to the diner for breakfast. It was a pretty classic diner by a truck stop. Fox News on TV and Delta Dawn on the radio. Good food though. We hit the road at 8:30 and went along on our intended route until we came up on a dead end sign. Well that can’t be good. The road apparently used to go through, but now stopped at a ranch. So we wandered around a bit trying to find out if we could still use the road through their farm. We finally found the owner and she told us that she wished Google Maps didn’t show the road and, while she hates to say no, she’d  have to. Apparently she’s had issues with gates being left open and losing cattle, cattle being shot, so back we go to a new route, which added 15 miles to our day. So sad. We traveled along one of the roads we came in on from Ontario and made our way towards Letha where we stopped for a short break, then into Emmett and filled our water bottles at a gas station with ice and water. So nice to have on a hot day. It was close to 90 degrees by 1:00. We cruised along the Payette River along 10 miles of smooth newly paved road (so awesome!) past the Black Canyon Reservoir and into Horseshoe Bend.  We stopped for more ice water for the next 28 miles to our stop for the night. The gas station was crazy busy with pickups, RVs and campers, all headed out of Boise for the holiday weekend. Jon asked the cashier about the road we were about to go on and she strongly recommended that we NOT bike on that road. The shoulders are not very wide and half the people with the RVs have no clue how to drive them. So an executive decision was made to try to find a ride up 14 miles to our turnoff for the campground.  Jon talked to one guy with a pickup and offered him $40 to drive us the 14 miles and he said that he wouldn’t even drive in that road right now with all the “weekenders”. Eventually we found a couple who would ferry us up. Special thanks so much to Jayson and Tammy from Boise! Once we got dropped off, we headed up the last 14 miles to 

the Hot Springs Campground in the Boise National Forest. It was still a busy road, but tolerable. We pulled off a few times to let the RVs go by, no real worries. We stopped one last time to grab provisions for the night (and shared a pint of ice cream to cool ourselves down 😋) and got to the campground around 5:30. Found a site as far away as we could from the multi family group set up in site 1 of 10 and then set up camp. There’s a wonderful natural hot spring across the road from the campground, so we had to take advantage of that! We walked down and soaked for a little bit in the 7ft round pool in the rocks, but also noticed the nearby “shower” with the spring water piped out of the ground at about 7 ft up the hillside. That was the best! Thoroughly washed away the sweat and road dirt. Perfection. We would have hung out in the pool a bit longer, but the sky was darkening and thunder rolled in the distance. Water and lightening are generally not a good mix (flashback to my dad’s whistle that sounded just like a lifeguard’s whistle...”everybody out of the pool!”) We scurried back up to our tent and rode out the brief rain storm. The guys in the next site over apparently decided to watch a movie or tv episodes or something. It was overly loud and overly crude, but eventually they emerged from their tent and started a fire. And then another shower came through. Oops, should of come out earlier! We had our dinner of sub sandwiches we’d gotten a few miles back and took a stroll after dinner. The air was so fresh after the rain storm and it was actually a nice evening. As we walked  past one family though we had to laugh. There was a Mom dousing herself in deep woods Off. All over every inch of her body and clothing. She even did a second spray under her arms for good measure. And then she assaulted the kids with it. I mean, we get it, mosquitoes are annoying, but there weren’t any out at that point. And have you read what that stuff can do to you?! I definitely had my share of deet dosages in my lifetime, but judicious use is generally recommended. Anyhoo...after our little stroll, we crashed for the night. Looooong day tomorrow! 100 miles!!