I arose to the great sound and smell of coffee being grinded and brewed. i was able to spend the morning with the family before they headed to school to teach and to nurse the students. I was happy to hear that nathan had mentioned me and my adventure to his students. I was delighted to hear that my pictures might be useful for his geography class. I hope that I can continue to surprise them with phenomanal pictures of the country. I was in search of a bike shop to pick a couple of things up, and I was directed towards one that was very close. It didn't open until 10 so I was welcomed to stay until it opened. I ended up staying at the house until around 11. I was in the process of updating my blog. As soon as I had finished and tried to post the blog, I was kicked off of the internet. I lost everything I had typed so I decided the blog could wait until another day. I packed everything up and went down to Ken's Bicycle Warehouse. Man was I glad that I had come to this shop. I came in and told the three guys what I was doing and asked them to hang up the flyer. Instantly, I was treated with the upmost incredible service. I told them I needed tires, tubes, and some cleaner and they couldn't have been happier to serve me. They gave me a 20% discount, which was awesome. Then they proceeded to make some changes to my bike to get it ready for the road, for free. As if that wasn't enough, they then gave me a water bottle for the road. I just want to take this time to say thank you to Ken's Bicycle Warehouse. They have been the most supportive and best group of guys that I've met at a bicycle shop so far on this trip. If you're ever in Boise, ID I strongly reccomend you give them a visit. They'll have everything you need with incredible service. I left the shop and headed towards the interstate. I was expecting the same nicely paved lane that I had experienced on the interstate before. I was ready for the great afternoon ride. I jumped on the interstate and the first thing I noticed was the construction on the shoulder, my lane. The shoulder was closed off for a couple of miles and the traffic was ridiculous. i didn't know any easier way to get to highway 26 that I was looking for, so I continued on. I was beginning to see a large difference from all the small towns I had seen before to what was now a city with a population of about 190,000. After the construction work and one very close call with a semi-truck, I had my own shoulder. Only now, the shoulder was full of glass and gravel. I knew my tires would be fine as long as I din't run over any goatheads. So I kept on keeping on for about another 10 miles and before me lay another construction zone. I was starting to get a little worried because the semis were getting pretty close as soon as my lane was closed. I can only describe the experience as riding down the edge of an interstate at the busiest point of the day and doing your best to hold your ground. Luckily about 1 mile into the 2nd construction zone, I saw my exit. I was back on the highway and hopefully wouldn't have to deal with interstate for the rest of the trip. The highway didn't have a large shoulder but it also didn't have hardly any traffic and it was a relief to be out on my own again. I rode for about 20 miles and decided to pull over to grab a bite to eat. There was a nice place on the right called "The Pizza Place." I pulled off and ended up staying there a lot longer than I had intended. I was able to stay there for a couple of hours while a thunderstorm passed. During that time I was able to talk to Bryan Jensen on the phone. He is the incredible person who introduced me to Food At First (F.A.F.), and to this day I can't thank him enough. It was great to chat with him and be able to hear how things were going with the flyers around the community and to hear how the folks were that come to F.A.F. I was very pleased to hear that some of the people that come to enjoy a free meal had taken interest in my blog. It blew me away at how much attention it had drawn. I was back on my bike after the thunderstorm and just knowing that something good was being done through this ride was a sense of encouragement to keep me going. I had a reson for the ride and I could fell God's prescence, this was the 2nd day in a row I had the wind at my back. The sky was overcast and looked like rain. I prepared all of my luggage for a storm, but nothing ever came. It made for the best cycling conditions. It was cool and overcast and i made it to Oregon in no time. When I reached Oregon I was surprised to see farmland. It was very weird because I was in the desert and then I crossed into Oregon and it was farmland. I saw a few signs so I pulled over to figure out what the deal was. Apparently I had just entered Malheur County which was nearly 10,000 square miles. Larger than the states of Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined; it's annual precipitation was under 10 inches. All of the 300,000 acres of farmland depended entirely upon irrigation which the farmers had started since the 1860's. Also in the same area was a volcano. The first volcano I had seen on my trip and it was called Malheur Butte. It has been inactive for millions of years and was pretty cool to see. After the brief history lesson I continued to ride until I made it through all of the beautiful farmland to a little town, Willow Creek. There was a great little cafe that was only open for a few more minutes, but they gladly served me because I had been on my bike all afternoon. Across the street was a school, so I rode to the school and had an excellent night's rest.
Daily mileage: 81.8 miles
Average Speed: 15.9 mph
Total mileage: 1667.4 miles
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