Sorry, my children, I have been busy writing for other places and other things.

You know what the great thing about bicyle touring is?

You can stop bicycle touring.

As anyone who has toured knows, there are many times during any given tour day that I felt like it was the dumbest thing I had ever done, but even better are the many times that I wouldn´t trade it for anything.

We left around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Once we had both KC’s and my gear in BOB we realized that we were going to need two, not so much for the weight but for the bulk. KC’s BOB was in Clifton, Idaho. So we rode from Logan to Clifton. When we discussed this option I understood that Clifton was about 10 miles from Logan. Apparently, I had misunderstood. Clifton is 45 miles from Logan. Not a big deal except I had left hungry and was expecting to eat lunch when we got there. After about an hour and a half of riding, we stopped for a snack, between the two of us we had three granola bars. Not exactly enough sustenance to keep me pedaling. We found a small Mom and Pops gas station and filled our guts with Mtn. Dew and Funyons. We arrived at KC’s grandmother’s house around 2:30 p.m.

KC fiddle around, cutting his BOB loose and chatting with the neighbor across the street while a took a much needed nap in a wonderfully comfortable recliner. We ate some apples and snagged a couple rolls of TP. After an hour we headed towards Preston to pick up the Lotoja course. Riding to Clifton was easy, the terrain was flat, rolling at its worst, but Clifton to Preston dropped us down into the ravine of the river where we had our first taste of a climb on the tour. We stopped at a grocery store in Preston and had some kick ass deli food, yes lots of vitamin g.

The Lotoja course is flat to Preston, but then it turns and climbs for 22 miles up and over Strawberry Pass which sits at 7,424 ft. After 17 miles of climbing we threw in the towel and camped at Strawberry Spring. This is a canyon. The only flat spot in the vecinity was next to an almost non existent watering hole. We threw down the sleeping bags and watched as the stars began to break through the twilight. Once it was almost completely dark, we heard footsteps and a hunter broke into our little flat. We had camped on the water hole he was watching, guess we saved some poor animals, eh? He was pretty typical, trying to warn us about all the bad animals out there that were going to come eat us during the night. He carried on for almost a half hour about wolves and mountain lions like he had been attacked almost every time he was in the wild and in the wild we were not. Our camping spot was only 150 yards off the side of the highway. He finally left.

We passed out. The stars became part of our dreams and the cold began to creap into the air. I was sound asleep when I heard KC scream and then the galloping of hooves. It seems that a horse, or as we called it, mystery beast had wondered into our camp. KC had heard its footsteps and thought it was going to step on him, yelling to scare it away. We could hear it winny for the next little while, and then sleep came again.