Something cool happened at the end of the day yesterday. Ian said he had a surprise for me when he picked me up from my ride.
As we ride cross country, we’ve been wanting to decorate the car – to show the world that we’re riding on The Dog Cancer Ride Across America. And yesterday, Ian and Nikki found a kiosk at, of all places, the Mall in Boise, that printed custom signs that you can use to decorate cars. It looks great – The Dog Cancer Ride Across America lettering, with an image of a dog and a bicycle alongside. And stickers with our www.dogcancerride.com <http://www.dogcancerride.com> web address on it. Exactly what we’d been looking for.
But I wanted more, more, more. And today was the last day that we’d be close to Boise, so we decided to take the first part of the day to hit the mall again – get some more signs – and shop for a few items that we still needed.
So by time I hit the road it was about 3:00pm. Not to worry though, all I needed to do was make it to Mountain Home and maybe, if I felt up to it, a few miles beyond. Nothing I couldn’t handle now that I had reached the frontage road alongside Route 84.
Or so I thought.
Because first there was a little matter of FINDING the frontage road along Route 84. And, for some reason, that just wasn’t going to be possible on this Day 16 of the ride.
As I rode along Simco road, the road that Google maps swore took me right to the frontage road connection, I immediately noticed a minor problem. There was no frontage road connection. So I stopped and called Ian, to have him look on his map and see what I’d done wrong.
“You’re right on track,” Ian said, “Simco road goes west, away from the freeway for just a bit and then turns back east and connects up with the frontage road”
“Great.” I responded. Happy to learn that I was on the right path.
Ooops. Because as I started riding, and riding, and riding – there was no turn-off to the frontage road – and Simco road did not turn back east towards the freeway. Nope, it just kept going straight southwest – angling away from the freeway – for miles, and miles, and miles. With no indication of stopping…, ever.
The road to nowhere.
Simco road did finally stop, eventually, about 20 miles later – and about 18 miles east of the freeway and my stopping point in Mountain Home. A long lonely trail that added almost 20 extra miles to my expected journey. And to make matters worse, as I turned to make my way back towards the freeway, the beautiful sunny Idaho day – you know, the one that led me to leave all of my rain gear in the car and ride with just my basic riding gear – was about to come to a dramatic end.
Off in the distance, the clouds with the distinct lines of rain falling down from them, decided to bear down upon me. And the temperature decided to drop, significantly, as the skies darkened. And the winds decided to pick up to about 30 miles per hour – southbound – which, since I was now travelling eastbound, meant 30 miles per hour side-winds (my favorite). And the rain drops – huge drops of rain, decided to start to fall – sideways. And I decided that I wasn’t having fun – and that I wanted to be done for the day.
I managed to keep riding through the cold and rain and wind – and even managed to get out in front of the rain clouds just enough to stay mostly dry. But by time Ian and Nikki met me in Mountain Home to take me back to our warm hotel – i was so very happy to see them, and so very happy to be done with my Road to Nowhere.
From back in the land of somewhere, Mountain Home, Idaho, bye for now and I’ll see you down the road.
- Ted
