Day 12 and 13

Today we left Austion Juction heading towards Baker City. We started the morning off right with a hearty breakfast that the owner of the restaurant Christie made for us which was delicious! Thanks again Christie for opening up your store for us yesterday, so we could buy some food and letting us camp in your backyard.

Before we started our difficult climbs over Tipton and Sumpter pass we decided to stop at a small bar and grab a beer...good carb loading baby! Tipton pass wasn't too difficult but Sumpter was more of challenge. I was waiting at the summit when I saw Kristen with a agonizing look on her face. Once she reached the top she jumped off her bike and yelled "my back is killing me!" She tried laying down to see if that would help with the pain, but must of laid on a mosquito families home because within seconds she was getting attacked by dozens of them. After she escaped the mosquitoes, I rubbed down her back with Icy Hot to see if that would relieve the pain. Lets just say Kristen felt the Hot for a few minutes! We wanted to make the 6 mile descend a bit more interesting and we thought it would be a good idea to see who's the fastest person down. Even with all the weight I was carrying in the trailer I still managed to win, but only by a few feet..hey a wins a win Kristen!

We managed to out pedal the storm clouds that were following us the last 20 miles before Baker City. We spotted a RV park and setup our tent before the large storm storm rolled in. All seriousness it looked like a F5 tornado was about to touchdown any second. The RV park had hot tube that we fully utilized to loosen up our aching muscles. After that we went into town and watched game 1 of the Lakers/Houston series. The Lakers dominated the whole game....how I wish the Nuggets were still in the series!
Later that evening when we were in tje tent ready for bed, it started to down pour! It felt nice to say that the tent we are sleeping in isn't just a tent, but our home for the next 3 months. This tiny home is going to provide us with the rest we need to re energize our bodies for the next day o pedaling. Don't worry we stayed dry with Kristens great purchase of a tent from REI!

The following day was a rest day because Idaho was going to kill us with all the climbing. I always thought Idaho was flat, but after examining the maps that Adventure Cycling donated to us, it looks like the central and northwestern parts are pretty mountainous with a lot of steep passes to climb!

We ran some errands throughout the day and in the evening we went to see the Pixon film UP. Kristen had a hard time convincing me to see it because I thought it was a kids movie, but like usual she convinced me to watch it. To e honest I liked the movie. I'm not going to ruin it for the people who still haven't seen it, but it's a story about an old man whose wife passes away and decides he wants to visit a place him and his wife always wanted to see and never got a chance. So the old man takes a bunch of balloons and ties them to his house and floats to S America. The plot kind of relates to us bike across America. We are both new to touring and as the days go on we are beginning to have our bodies more use to pedaling for 5-6 hrs a day. Most importantly this adventure is going to widen our horizons about the different kinds of people and lifestyles Americans have. Their stories and opinions on politics, environment, religion, ect which is the foundation that makes our culture so unique and interesting to learn about.

Sorry we are behind on the blogs will post more later

Take care