We are in Mountain Home Idaho.  Gonna take the day off. It's been 9 days since we had one and we need it bad. Got here yesterday about 4 and got a campsite at a KOA campground.  Washed clothes, patched tubes blah, blah, blah.  Today we're gonna find a motel when we get done here because it's been a long time since we slept in a bed, hit Walmart for essentials, buy tubes and tires at a local bike shop, work on the damn stove again and clean the chains.
After we left the Presbyterian Church in Dayville we rode to Dixie Pass campground (no water), got a cheap camp site ($7.50) in Brogan Ore., entered Idaho at about Ontario Ore. and rode to Caldwell Idaho where we spent the nite and then came here to Mountain Home.  After we left Dixie Pass we did over 70 miles a day every day thanks to a tailwind and downhill/flat terrain.  We timed our route around getting through Boise Idaho on Interstate 84 on a Sunday thinking there would be less traffic and I'm glad we did because I don't think we coulda made it on a work day.  The traffic was fairly heavy on a Sunday. 
Traveling on Interstates is not that enjoyable because of the noise generated by truck traffic but it is legal in this state and many others and it's usually the most direct route, if not the only, to where you want to go.  It's much safer than it looks because of the ultra wide shoulders and if you pay attention to what's going on around you.
It's been over 100 degrees the last few days at the end of the day.  That's a good thing because it'll help us adapt to the heat coming up in Utah.  It's not as bad as it sounds though because, and I hate to say this because everyone does about the  heat in the desert states, "it's a dry heat."  100 degrees here is not like 100 degrees in Kansas.  In Kansas at anything over 90 degrees you can't decide whether you'll drown in your own sweat or go up in flames. The problem with "dry heat" is it takes so much water to keep moving.  On one of the awful climbs in Oregon I went through two Camelback bladders of water.  I think that's 80 ounces.  The heat is supposed to continue as well.  A guy at the campground said it was 112 here last week.
I knew this part of the world was arid but the environment since leaving Dixie Pass Oregon reminds me of New Mexico.  The difference between this environment and New Mexico's is there is more water here, believe it or not, and less trash beside the road.
Speaking of water there are conflicts here about water use.  I couldn't believe it but they actually water pastures here. I don't think I've ever seen that in Kansas or any other state.  I asked one of the locals about it and they said it was considered irresponsible by many people and they're trying to put restrictions on some water use.  There are other legal complications to the issue for sure but I don't have time to get into that now.
From here we're ride into Utah and we're trying to time our riding through Salt Lake City so it'll happen on a Sunday.  If we don't go through Salt Lake City we'll have a take a longer mountainous way around it.  We rode through the city in '06 and it wasn't that pleasant. Plus, I never really knew exactly where I was.  We were headed north and that was all that mattered at the time.
This won't surprise the people who know me well but I've already got a list going about things I want to do when I get home.  Among other things I'm going to audit a geology and an anthropology class at Washburn, make black bean/mushroom burritos based on a new recipe I came up with after reading about the health benefits of mushrooms somewhere, do more stair climbing at the expo center, get back to weight lifting so I won't need to worry so much about hurting my wrist, paint the south and west side of the house and many other responsible things.
By the way it hasn't rained on us since somewhere in Washington state.  Nice.
More about the Presbyterian Church in Dayville.  The lady who managed it for the church was a real sweetheart named Rose.  One of the stories she told us about Dayville is that the skinheads wanted to buy some property there and the local folks got together and stopped them from doing it.  I'm not sure  how you can legally do that but they did.  I don't understand why the locals had a problem with them. I mean, don't meth addicted Nazi whack jobs with a history of violence and Swastikas tattooed on their boney bodies have first amendment rights too?
I gotta go