Making Progress

Rode yesterday from Heyburn, ID to American Falls, ID and, despite heat and headwinds, managed to cover a respectable 53 miles. Also, despite slathering on SPF 50 sunblock, I now officially have a "cyclist's tan" on my arms, legs and face. Never thought I'd see the day when my pale, pale skin would actually start to turn some shade of bronze. Will be sure to get a skin cancer screening when this trip's done ;-) Well, just outside of town is the Willow Bay park, right along the banks of the American Falls reservoir, where they have a cafe, an RV park and a boat launch. I spoke with one gentleman who was curious about my trip and we compared fuel costs - gasoline for his big RV and food for me on the bike. After learning that his RV gets about 7 MPG we decided I was the hands down winner. We then started talking about my sprinkler incident in Filer, ID and, within three minutes, the sprinklers came on in the lawn area! One of them was just grazing the front of my tent but I managed to put a heavy rock over the offending spigot and avoid any more problems (and the lady at the check-in office specifically told me there would be no problems with sprinklers!). Then I watched a beautiful sunset across the water and managed to snap a few shots to share. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good about the trip. My Achilles tendon is under control with the ankle support I'm wearing, my knees aren't hurting since I've managed to reduce the amount of hills I have to climb, and my attitude about the trip is becoming more positive since I now see how far I've come (almost 1,000 miles!!!) and know that I'm capable of continuing. Still, I somehow feel like I should be making more progress. This is an adjustment I'm still working on, though, and I'm trying to focus more on the journey itself than on any particular distance goals. Even at 50+ miles per day it takes a long time to get across any decent sized state (and I've got a few more of those coming up!)

Total mileage so far: 951.

Please consider making a small donation to help cancer survivors (sadly, my mom was not one of them) http://www.livestrong.org/grassroots2008/steveonhisbike