Screwtop Bottle

Mother nature won today. We did get our free breakfast, waffles and all, then left Hailey, without running into Demi, at 8:20. Things went fine and we even took the raincoats off for awhile, until we hit a big, unexpected hill climbing up to the Craters of the Moon national monument. The wind hit us in the face, and we inched our way up in the easiest gear we had, trying to stay on a wobbling bike at 3mph. Arriving at the visitor center in a rain, we wolfed down our stolen bagels with peanut butter(we disregarded the sign at the buffet that said do not take food), and spent about an hour warming up. It started raining right then, but that was just a preliminary to the wind later. As we hit the flat parts, it became the ride that a tornado chaser would run from. Smack in our face, at about 25mph, with gusts that knocked us sideways. Big O was starting to resemble a sail. At one point, a giant hay truck went by the other way and it felt like we had been hit with a fly swatter. With pieces of hay for missiles. There was a 5 mile straightaway that took us over an hour to get past, an airport went by, with no airplanes landing or taking off. Duh. The wind sock was as erect as it could get. Then there is this square mile of desert they call Arco. It was the very first town in the country to be powered by the atom. They hooked up nuclear power and turned it on. Too bad it didn't blow up. We weren't in a great mood when we got here, but Chernobyl had it better. They've got so much graffiti on the mountain above that it looks like there's a gang war. Totally covered, and gross. The wind blows, it's cold. The motel room is nice, and the owner who is a really nice gal, introduced us to her newly adopted daughter, Angelica, from Khazakstan. The girl is only 4, so she obviously didn't have a choice of locations in America. She'd still be Khazakstan if she had any idea. One final insult, the diner we ate dinner had an overweight, slovenly, unwashed waitress who brought out my beer, couldn't get it open with her meathooks, so she used the front of her grease stained shirt to open the screwtop. I drank it anyway.
Things are looking up, we are sitting here drinking beer and eating chocolate, and plan to ride 70 miles tomorrow to Idaho Falls. And the wind will be at our back to even things up.