Made the 2 hour windy drive from Kimberly to Hailey, ID.
Pulled into Sun Summit South bike shop owned by Chip. He greeted me saying I was too early shop. as there is still much snow not very high up. Hills above the valley are melted out & in flower. Fun visiting w/ Chip whom I meet back in 1998 in the same shop. We picked up from where we left off last summer.
This guy walks in and says to me he reads my blog daily. He invited me on a ride later that afternoon on the local close in trails from Hailey. He is a horse veterinarian.
Our ride started from a town park 2 blocks off the main highway. Great trail system that the locals ride first and last of the seasons because during the summer it is very hot, perhaps relative. Fun trails winding around up & down the sage brush covered slopes. Parts dropped down into creek bottoms lines w/ aspen. Steve climbed stronger than me but I was faster than him going down which is a first. He asked me to go first after awhile so he could study my technique. I told him of what i learned about from Better Ride. Steve was leading on a climb on a newly machine built trail piece. I saw the tail end of a rattlesnake trying to slither back up the back slope of the trail. He didn’t see it. I suspect the snake fell down the back slope when he went by and I got to see the recovery.
Back to van at end of late afternoon early evening ride. I cleaned up then walked uptown to the Powerhouse which is a burger bar w/ Belgium drafts and a bike fitting bike repair shop in a side room. I visited here last year. Chopper, who writes an advice column for Bike Mag, sometimes hangs here. Tonight I hoped it would be one of his visits. Good dinner but he didn’t show.
2 unknown local riders welcomed me via email.
Yesterday I reviewed the reader survey on my site, 406 humans visited my site.
Only pic today was of a flower than Steve didn’t know.
Yellow lupine flowering. Rock rodes are just starting to bloom. I am enjoying a progressive spring as I move north.
I have a van appointment on Fri to seek out the source of diesel that I smell inside the van while driving.
My INR value was 1.6 well below therapeutic, something is up w/ my body. Tomorrow I call the thyroid DR.
Gotta scoot to the USFS land for camp where there might not be internet access. 9:30 sundown is rough.
Oh, I was notified that the new issue of DirtRag has my 1000 day party article. Haven’t found the mag myself.