so its a bit after the fact, but i have some photos of the meal we had in park city the night before we hit the rockies.  quinn’s mom treated us splendidly.  who cares if we ate desert first and THEN found the 2 for 1 dinner entree coupons in the local paper?  as roz said, “in life, you should enjoy desert before dinner.”  so i’ll post the photos in the order we ate.

creme brulee with little hazelnut cookies

ken's chocolate orangscicle with banana

ken's kobe beef with chipotle shrimp skewers

quinn's elk asparagus octopus monster thing

my BBQ ribs volcano with mashed potatoes and onion rings. the potatoes are stuffed into the coil of ribs. pure deliciousness.

so with this fantastic meal we tackled the rocky mountains.  and conquered.   ken has already written all about it so i’ll just put up some photos i have of the brutal climb.

notice ken's goofy ass in the background

after 4 hours of climbing this was a welcoming sign

after the 50mph stinging descent this is what we devoured at the local chevron

so that is my interpretation of the rocky mountains.  food.  climb.  descent.  food.  i found myself at one point asking the mountains, “is that all you got for me? rocky mountains huh? more like just a pile of rocks.”

the next morning after sleeping in the spare office across from Chevron we walked over to the station and ate.  it was surprising to me that it was a corporate gas station but everything on the menu was made from scratch on the spot.  donuts, brownies, cookies, breakfast sandwiches, chili, everything! and it was all fantastic!

ham, 2 patties, 2 eggs, pepperjack

Hugen's breakfast

Jalapeno Guac burger in Hagerman

Country Burger with bacon and cheese, fries AND salad

So now that I’m riding more than I ever have in my life I can pretty much eat whatever I want and burn it off the next day.  Greasy spoon diners are my favorite places to eat.  The waiters and watiresses usually have the best stories and witty remarks to accompany their devil-may-care personalities.  They are also a great resource for route and weather information.  Farmers can just look out the window and tell us if it’s going to rain on us or pass by whether it looks it or not.  Good thing they have them all across America.

He’s a great guy. We can vouch for him. He bought us lunch at the neighborhood deli. He took off and disappeared without a trace before we could get a photo with him, but the man behind the counter (pictured below) confirmed that he was indeed the mayor, and they weren’t pulling our leg.

Declo, Idaho. Population 293. The mayor (not this guy) has reigned unopposed for 25 years.

The Hugens didnt have any regular candles, so we used a house candle and ken held it in place. THIS is an ice cream potato!

Our day began with a distraught anticipation of daylong rainshowers, and a cheeful vision of lunches packed for us by the Hugens. Another homerun inside a slam-dunk for warmshowers.com houses. Thanks, Hugens!

It was our great luck that the rain avoided us almost all day long. It had clearly showered here and there, but not when we were either here or there.

The first leg of the next four days to Ogden, Utah ended up being a surprisingly long and boring 50+ miles. We don’t have any pictures to show you, because there wasn’t much to see. Imagine a long, straight road. With some shrubbery, landfills and factories edging it. And imagine that long road being longer. Now imagine that twice. All we wanted was a cup of coffee, but for 55 miles, all we got were chipmunks and woodchucks scurrying into their holes as we approached, as if we were some sort of low-flying bird of prey with wheels. Turns out we *were* in the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, so these woodland creatures did have something to be skittish about. Another note - the only birds of prey we seemed to see were the F-16s and A-10s from the Mountain Home Air Force Base.

Things looked up in Great View, across the Snake River. We were 55 miles in and all we needed was coffee, but we found a burrito joint! Score! It wasn’t even noon, and we only had 18 miles ahead of us to get to our destination - Bruneau Idaho. Again our expectations for small, crappy towns were blown out of the water by the great people at the local pub, “Cowboy’s Pastime” (It used to be called “Chet’s Pastime” until it burned down while Chet was overseas at war (WW2). “I plan on coming back,” he told his friends back home, “so start building it back up again.”

Dave Tindall, a guy who has 8 or 9 sister’s in law, took to telling us his stories of ranching. His brother was sitting next to him at the bar Or at least I think it was his brother. I’m definitely sure the guy sitting next to him was married to the bartender, and the bartender said that Tindall was her brother in law. Then again, maybe she just had a bunch of sisters. In a town of 200 (including all the outlying areas), everyone’s probably related or married to eachother. That’s not to say everyone was running around with five or six teeth, walking a dog with three legs. Although they did tell us the story of this one lady who had one tooth. It was one of their sisters in law. Seriously. They wanted to give her a job, but they didn’t want the public to have to see her, so they gave her the cleaning job on Monday mornings. Turns out, she couldn’t clean worth shit! (their words, not mine) I’m not sure what they ended up giving her as a job, but they told us another story about how just last week, she lost her ID and new set of fake teeth in a night of drunken chicanery at a bar down the street in Grand View. See, partying in Idaho isn’t all that much different from partying in New York City. People jumping on tables, flashing their boobs, losing their teeth. Not like I know anyone who’s lost their teeth…but I do know someone who HAS fake teeth. And she’s toured France! As far as I know, she’s never lost them though. But even Andy has lost his ID. (It turns out it was in his couch).

Another thing about Cowboy’s Pastime. They’ve got a Mario Brothers arcade game and a Neo-Geo there. Not *Super* Mario Brothers… Mario Brothers. I’d never even played this before. I now have the top 4 scores there. I have a photo to prove it. That and more photos will be uploaded later. Wifi at this campsite (!) isn’t all that strong…

By the way, if you’re around on May 16th, they’re doing goat-roping in the back room. We hear it draws a pretty big crowd.

Every time we tried to leave Cowboy’s Pastime, it started to rain, so they gave us more beers. Our grand total of 11 drinks cost us $22. Score again! Finally, around 3:30, we left to find the campground that Patrick Hugens recommended. It was a slightly inebriated 6 miles down the road, backed up against some massive sand dunes that Andy & I ran down, watching the thunderstorms recede to the south. There are some pretty epic photos we’re going to put up sometime soon. We’re there now, and it still might rain on us, but we’re in the tent, ready to call it a night.

In North Powder, Oregon we ate some greasy food. This was one stop on a long list of awesome places on our first easy day. After three straight 100+ mile days, it seemed like a good idea to chill out a little bit and ride something like 50 instead. This let us hang out at Hot Lakes, diners, historical towns and the like.

Oregon has four condiments!

In Baker City, just about everything seemed awesome. Including Bev from Bella’s, who we regrettably do not have a picture of. Just keep in mind that her wine store sponsors the annual Elk Horn Classic stage race in Baker City so that the female racers get equitable prizes to the men. Bev, you seriously rule, and if you check out this blog, we want to tell you something: “You seriously rule”.

Bev recommended motels and food for us. It was sub-freezing that night, so not camping didn’t feel like copping out. She also pointed us to Barley Browns, who’s home brews and ample meat selections had us at near-food-coma status by the time we were ready for dessert. Our server recommended the giant chocolate cake. We acquiesced, easily. Andy then suggested she prepare it however she saw fit. So she brings out this heaping mound of chocolate awesomeness, smothered with whipped cream, a shovelful of vanilla ice cream, and a whole patch-ful of strawberries.

nom nom nom. We'd already had steak, wings, and ribs...

Moments later, it was gone.

We had to skip karaoke at the shady bar on the wrong side of the tracks, because we were too stuffed to even get our legs over our bikes

Nice Illustration!

Bo, Center, from Croatia, got lost in the middle of Oregon and has been cooking for truckers ever since.

The tiny town of Durkee Oregon can’t have more than 50 residents, but it’s got the “Redneck Cafe”, owned by a Croatian dude who was sitting at the counter the entire time. We got our 30-mile morning coffee there. The guy, “Bo”, his two regulars, and his waitress talked us up for 45 minutes. How does a Croatian guy end up running a greasy-spoon trucker joint in a tiny town between two 10,000 person towns? We…we’re really not sure. He claims he got lost, and just stayed. We wished we were hungrier. 

this dog, sissie, was HUGE! she sat in the bag of the truck.. the truck owned by the folks inside the redneck cafe. They passed us several times on the road.

Durke maybe has 50 people living in it.. maybe. One thing that every town of every size has, is a post office. and this was the one at durkee. so small, so awesome. i put some postcards in thier mailbox so they would have something to do on monday.. hopefully the mail actually goes out there.. :)