It feels so good to rest...
After 712 miles biking from the Pacific Ocean to Boise. Idaho...
After a total of 28,250 feet of climbing...
Someone told me we had biked up as much as the summit of Mt Everest...
Wow! Are we amazing!
But now we deserve a day of rest...
Some members of our group go out for a quick off-day spin...
But we think they are crazy!
Al sleeps in...
I catch up on blogging....
Then a special treat for my sun-scalded skin...
An Aveda facial...
Which includes a shoulder massage...
When she presses down my shoulders I feel the tension melt away...
....the muscles and bones relax...
The curtains shield us from the intense sun outside...
Soft warm candles, soothing music....
A glass of the freshest water....
I could stay here forever....
But I have a date for lunch...
...Tim from the Land Trust of Treasure Valley...
We eat at the Ram Pub right along the Boise River...
He shows me maps of the area we've just biked through....
....and the lands they protect...
...cottonwood trees and grasslands...
....riversides and mountainsides...
Their land trust is like my Red-tail Conservancy back home...
A small group with a passion to protect the natural lands near our homes....
I bless the LTTV as I rest under a cottonwood tree enjoying its shade and its birds....
The LTTV also promotes the love of the land through art...
....with a recent award to artist Carl Rowe for his beautiful paintings of the Boise foothills.
Tim tells me to read Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner...
....one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century...
It tells the story of a man's dream to bring water to the desert of southern Idaho...
a story I can relate to now...
Tim also tells the history...
how the French explorers struggled over the grim shadeless desert...
"Les Bois!" they exclaimed in French - "The trees!"
Tim has to return to work...
On his trusty bicycle festooned with colorful beads...
Good-bye, Tim.
Thank you for showing me your Boise.
By the way, Tim also tells me that Al and I should have dinner at the Red Feather lounge tonight.
When she returns to the room Al tells me all about her exciting day...
facial
outdoor cafe with internet
and the fabulous Boise food co-op!
She finds all kinds of local cheeses, breads, and fresh red raspberry jam!
Probably the same raspberries I picked along our bike ride...
She is so excited she has to call her friend Nicole who worked with her on an organic farm just last summer.
She bubbles away on her cell phone as we taxi to dinner.
Right away we notice the caliber of the parked vehicles....
This is Al's kind of place!
She loves local foods!
Their wines are listed by the distance the wine has traveled to get here...
I order the one mile wine...
It is excellent!
Al gets the Gnocchi - all ingredients come from within 100 miles...
We probably biked by the very farms that fed us tonight!
It's such a pleasant evening and our legs feel so rested...
We walk back passing the famous Egyptian Theater, the most haunted place in Idaho....
We wander through the Basque neighborhood...
It's like a small bit of Europe in the American west.
Who would guess Boise would have the most Basques in America?
And the only Basque mayor?
The sun settles behind us as we round the bend on our rest day...Tomorrow we will be back on bike...
....and on to Mountain Home!
2 comments:
Even your off day blogs are cool. Glad you had a relaxing day; the spa amenities sound great.
Gotta go. Lots on my plate today...heck every day.
Egyptian Theater!!! =D
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