Gooding

July 15, 2008
Last night at the peloton meeting the flat tire count was up to 230-some flats for the trip. About 35 people (including myself) haven’t had one yet. Also at the peloton meeting Ad De bluiji, our Haitian rider (he’s originally from Holland and now works for CRWRC as an agronomist), gave a short talk on his work in Haiti. Solving poverty issues in Haiti is a complex issue.

I 'overslept' till 6, so after breakfast I told Doug and Joy to go on ahead. The first part of the ride was flat or down hill so I was able to make really good time and caught back up within about 8 miles. It sure is nice to have a comfortable bike that moves really well. The scenery is changing again . . . it’s still desert, but there are now buttes instead of hills or mountains. Not much wildlife today except a badger and a lizard. We were riding along the Snake River for part of the trip. In one of those sections Claire Elgersma yelled that she saw a fish come way up out of the water. She said it was at least 5 ft long. We were giving her a hard time about fish stories, but then we stopped in the next town at a little café for coffee. They told us there that in that part of the Snake River there are very large sturgeon and they are protected in that area. One of the gentlemen there told us a story of him and his brother catching one. They had a 14 foot boat and after fighting the fish for 4 ½ hrs they pulled it up with its head at the front of the boat to release it and its tail was visible behind the boat, about a 16 foot fish!

We are staying tonight at Gooding, ID; we actually have some nice shade trees. The road is pretty nasty along part of the route -- it was chip seal that was a whole lot more chip than seal, with a lot of loose gravel, but it went well. Gooding has a population of about 3300. We checked out the library/police station/city hall/information center. The area that we are travelling though is along the old Oregon Trail and there is a lot of history in this area.