Monday August 4, 2014. Rexburg ID

We got a little later start than we wanted leaving Jackson. But still on the road by 7 am. It was a chilly start. We rode to McD's to fuel up before the climb over Teton Pass. Most of climbs we have done before are 6-8%. Teton Pass is 10%. Should be a fun challenge! Looking forward to it.

My knee started bothering me again a few days ago going into Dubois. At home I had some physical therapy on it before we left. Hap has been carrying a smaller chain ring the whole trip just in case. That would give me some lower gears to hopefully help the knee. Before leaving Jackson he put It on. Since we are adding an additional week of climbing in the mountains with Jill and Frank I thought it was the smart thing to do. I had a bad fall off my mt bike last December in Phoenix and injured it. It's interesting going to the doc as we get older. When you are in your 20-30's the doc would look at a knee and say let's do this and that tests, try this or that and you should be good as new. Now in my 50's they say yep it's arthritis. Probably be a nagging issue off and on. Good luck! Ah we'll. what ya gonna do!

We left Jackson on a busy Rt 22 toward Wilson. We were looking for old pass rd. apparently they let bikers and walkers use the old road across the pass. The climb didn't start until Wilson. Last winter we drove over this pass and it was scary. Lots of snow! Sort of drivable.

We found the old road with no problem and immediately the grade got steeper. Very doable though. But it was a grind. We saw several hikers and a few cyclist. Lots of downhill bike trails. Looked like fun! Closer to the top the views were beautiful. The pictures probably don't show very well. At the top we took an apple peanut butter break. While there we ran into a guy from Oregon that was running across the US pushing a child stroller full of camping gear. Can't imagine doing that!!

The downhill was awesome! There was some road construction that actually helped us because it slowed the traffic down. We rode into Victor and stopped at the Teton Brewery. Had to try the local brew. There was a food truck there so we got a fish and steak taco. They were great!

In Victor we got on a bike trail to Driggs. Nice to be away from traffic bit it wasn't bad anyway. In Driggs we stopped at the grocery before leaving town. The clouds started to roll in and the rain started falling. We stopped a couple of minutes to wait it out. When we left Driggs it had stopped but still threatened.

For the night we arranged to stay with Carolyn's house in Teutonia. Hap had the address programmed in his GPS and I had it programmed into my IPhone. When We got to Teutonia, the GPS said go 6 miles north. My iPhone said turn here. We kept going 6 miles and realized this wasn't right. We called her and he said "no your not supposed to be there". We backtracked to the place we were before. Yes my iPhone was right. There's only one thing that makes missing a turn better. And that is missing a turn in a storm!

We finally arrived and had a fun evening with Carolyn, David and Mardell their new baby. Carolyn made us salmon and asparagus on the grill. Yummy!

The next morning we got a late start and headed to St Anthony's to another warm showers. Steve and Mary Fran. We spent a fun night watching Mary Fran try to get her kids and grand kids organized for a backpacking trip. What a great family!

This morning it was pouring down rain. We left their house hoping it would clear. But it didn't look like it. As we passed through Rexburg we saw a Super 8 and stopped. Tomorrow we are riding toward Arco to meet Jill and Frank. The plan is to spend a week riding through Gods country Idaho. Should be a great ride!

Walkers on Old Teton pass road

Old Teton pass road

At top of of Teton pass

Running across the US

Stroller with runners gear

The downhill!

Construction on the downhill

Teton Brewery

Starting up the pass

Friday August 1, 2014. 8 weeks on the road!

Haps saddle has a boo boo!

Fort Washakie

On the road to Dubois WY

Haps favorite part-the downhill. Going down to Wind River

KOA Dubois WY

Climbing Togwotee Pass Continental Divide 9658 feet. Just before the storm!

Power break!

Me too.....

Hap, Was that thunder? At top of pass

Slow down for Hap and Diane too!!

Teton mountains outside of Jackson

Road construction going into Jackson. At least scenery is beautiful while we wait

 Never seen a traffic roundabout on a bike trail. Have you?

Bike maintenance

Map Profile climbing Togwotee Pass (sorry couldn't turn picture right side up for you)

Wish this blog site would stop changing how to make  posts! Having trouble getting pics and writing to sync. You can probably get the just of what's going on! Sorry if hard to follow. 

When we left Lander the sun was shining, we set off for a Dubois. Hopefully the rainy part is finished. Famous last words! For the next few days we will be climbing until we get over Togwotee
Pass. Todat the climbing was easy enough so that it was "almost" (!) not noticible. We rode through

an Indian reservation and stopped for a snack and a bathroom break. Speaking of that.... Riding in this terrain of no cornfields, trees, or buildings. Where does Diane go to the bathroom? I can get really small and be really fast! I have a decoy plan too. If I have to go I bathroom I run to other side of road cause I know everyone who goes by will look at Hap on the opposite side. Nuff said about that!
We stopped at a rest area for lunch. Today we had yogurt, wrap with peanut butter and Nutella and an apple. A group of people arrived and started setting up their lunch. It was a nice family from Wisconsin who were out celebrating their dad's life. He passed away recently. They all (18 of them) had t shirts that said "Live like Ed". Neat family!

Riding along the Wind River was pretty. . Beautiful country out here. Saw some red rock formations  traffic wasn't bad at all. Hope it stays like this. In Dubois we went to the KOA. Seems like highways robbery to charge $34 for a tent site. But what can you do? It's nice to have a shower at the end of a long day in the saddle. Dinner tonight was baked beans, mashed potatoes, carrots, celery. Not too bad! I laid down in the tent at 5:30p to watch a movie. Gotta love wifi and netflix. Hap walked over to hear some "fiddle" music that was playing in camp. Actually it was right by our tent so I could hear it too. We both slept great.

We got up at 6a and went over to a cafe for breakfast. The sun was shining but it was pretty chilly. It warmed up quickly though. For today the plan was to climb Togwotee Pass at 9658 feet. We started climbing right away but the major climb was 11 miles long. Shortly after leaving town we caught up with a couple guys that we rode. Turns out they were a group of ten who had met on the road. A bunch of young ones. Not sure of ages maybe in the 20's? As we started the main climb there was a store that the guys stopped at. Most of their group was there. We continued on. The climb wasn't bad at all just long.


As we got to the top, we stopped to eat. Clouds start rolling in and it started thundering. Two of the kids showed up after awhile. Then two girls  it started to rain harder so we all headed over to a picnic area and an outhouse with a porch! Yea! It ended up with ten of them and two of us crowded on the porch. Fun talking with them. when the first two showed up they commented that they had been riding with two people from Ohio they couldn't keep up with. Wonder if we were the only two people from Ohio they had ridden with?

We stayed quite a while on the porch hoping the rain would stop but it never did. Finally we gave up, put on our rain gear(and my down vest! It was cold!)   Some of the "kids" left with us and some waited. What a downhill. Heavy rain, temps maybe 40's, traffic and a 6% descent! Wow! It was awesome. I stayed behind Hap to watch the expert road racer (motorcycle) negotiate the turns. Max speed for us was only 42 mph due to rain and headwind. I have a question for cars. If the speed limit us 45 mph, we are going 42 and there's a passing lane, can you just move into other lane. We rode in the lane because it's not safe at those speeds. So MOVE Over genius!

About half way down the sun came out.  Amazing how that happens in the mountains.  When we got to the campground the first thing Hap noticed was a very soft i.e. Almost flat) front tire!!!! Thank you Lord for your protection. All the time! We planned to camp at Moran Junction. Here we go again except this time campsite was $38. Guess we are in a tourist area. Oh well. They had a cafe so we had hamburgers and chilli. After we set up camp we just had tuna sandwiches for dinner. Slept good again.

The next morning we packed up and went into the warm store for coffee and breakfast. After today we are leaving the Adventure Cycling route and turning west toward Jill and Franks. We plan to meet them in Arco ID for a week of riding in the Sun Valley area before going to their house. And hopefully meet other friends from Boise along the way.  I thought I had a campground picked out in Wilson. According to their website and calling them we thought they had tent sites for $38. But this am we found out they didn't accept riffraff tents. We scrambled for a couple hours looking for places to tent camp in Jackson. Hotels were $170-$450....  The KOA waned $48. I asked her if they had a pool hot tub or anything she said no. Electric water? No. Finally we found a warm showers host who had a friend that said we could camp at their house. Whew! Frustrating morning.

The ride into Jackson is a beautiful ride. We love the mountains. But we don't love the traffic! Thankfully there was some road construction that slowed down the traffic. In Jackson we couldn't go to our hosts house until 5p. We went to eat, bike shop, rec center to get in hot tub and shower, and grocery in that order. Dale was super nice and opened his house to us even though he wasn't home most of evening. Tomorrow's ride will be interesting. We are climbing Teton Pass which is steeper than any we have done on this trip yet. Let you know how it goes!

Tuesday, July 29, 2014 Lander Wyoming

We had a decent start out of Rawlins, leaving about 7:15am.  The sun was shining and the winds were favorable! They were light winds but it was a tailwind so we'll take it! We headed north on Rt 287 and stayed on it all day. Not much to talk about as far as scenery.We are riding through the Wind River area, which is alot of nothing to see. There isn't even any traffic to talk about. Today we had no services for 40 miles. We were loaded with four large waterbottles two liter bottles, one small waterbottle. We had ridden fourty miles before 11 am. That might be a world record for the Eaton's! We stopped at the only store for miles. Gas sold for $4.40 per gallon, glad we're not buying any of that. We ate a couple of sandwiches and cokes and headed off again.

We planned to stop in Jeffrey City but with this tailwind thought maybe we should keep going. Jeffrey City used to be a booming town of 5000 people. Now it is a mostly boarded up place that has a bar and a pottery business (??) open. Not much happening there. We stopped in the bar for a cold drink. I had read some reports that the people in this bar did not like cyclists. But found that not to be the case at all. Hap started talking to the guy at the bar and that was it. Friends! Across the street was a place called Monk King Bird Pottery. Our map said that you could either camp at Monk Bird Pottery or you could stay in their trailer. We weren't sure what that meant until we got there. In front of the place were several small trailers that were painted in psychedelic colors. Looks like a good place to stay Hap.....NOT.

When we left the bar in Jeffrey City we had twenty miles to go to Sweetwater Station. The map showed one place to camp there called Morman Handcart Historic Site. Mmm... wonder what that is? We'll see. We had a lumpy ride to Sweetwater Jct. but not bad. About 3pm though the sun got pretty hot. That's about the time we got to the Handcart Site.

 When we turned into the parking lot there were five large buses parked, plus alot of cars, and a whole bunch of kids there. A guy with a HOST badge on was waving us in. Wonder what we're getting into now? Did I mention that we were in the middle of nowhere, nothing around but all these people?? He said your in the right place, you can camp over there, bathrooms are there, welcome to the Morman Handcart Historic Site............. OK.thanks...........we were confused........

We went over to the place he told us to camp and set up the tent. Not too far from us was a large group of kids, many tents, and a type of handcart (see pictures!). All we knew was that there was alot of kids and adults, dressed in "Pioneer clothing". Wonder what's going on? About that time all the kids lined up and came walking past us pulling their handcarts. Several of the adults stopped to chat for a minute asking us where we were headed. They said they were off for a handcart walk.......mmm...still trying to figure it out!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers Here's a website I found that can explain it.

We went to the Visitor center to see what we could find out. Now we were really curious. One of the other Elders explained that this place was where a group of Mormons from Europe
 walked across the US (starting in Iowa City) to Salt Lake City. They got stranded in a blizzard and had to be rescued by Mormons sent from Salt Lake City by Brigham Young. This is a sacred place to the Mormons. The youth that were there were reliving the walk with handcarts that their ancestors took. An interesting
presentation. Everyone was very nice to us and welcoming. There was no charge for camping or using their facilities. After learning about this place we cooked dinner (spaghetti, peas, chicken with oranges on the side) and went to bed. We were sound asleep by 8:30p. It was a long day!

This am we left Sweetwater Junction. Rain was threatening so we put on our raingear and headed out.

 The wind had shifted out of the northwest. Guess which way we are going? Not much traffic at all today. Probably due to the pouring down rain. It seemed like we did alot of climbing because we were up and down all day. But the GPS said we were at a lower elevation. Tomorrow we will be climbing all day to Dubois. There is a good chance of rain and winds out of the north. When we got into Lander in a downpour we went to McDonalds to consider options. We ended up booking a hotel room, going to the grocery store for dinner supplies and stopping at a bike shop for some correct size spokes (that's another story.......ask Hap!). We checked into the hotel, took a hot shower, put our feet up and watched the rain outside. Tomorrow weather is supposed to be more of the same. Can't wait! Later..........