Tuesday: Driggs to Big Elk Creek YMCA Camp, 47 miles; 1717’ gainWe had breakfast at the campground at Driggs. They had everything: waffles, oatmeal, bacon, eggs, juice, bagels. But we had to stand next to a dumpster to have a surface to eat off of. Oh well. We headed out kind of early.
Turned out it was too early. It was cold, cold, cold, which isn’t surprising for 6200’ elevation. We didn’t have long gloves or long shirts on. We were freezing after 5 miles. We tried to stop at a café to warm up, but it turned out to be closed. So we just sat in the growing sunlight until we were thawed and it seemed warm enough to continue.
We had a little climb that led to a steep drop. That was a hoot. We roared into the little burg of Swan Valley which was to be our lunch stop. We beat lunch by about 25 minutes. We hung out with other riders, particularly Deb and Dennis from Caldwell. Lunch finally arrived. Sheila had the sprouty veg sandwich. I ate one of our bean rollups. Then we headed for the Y camp.
We misread the cue sheet and so the end of the ride didn’t show up for three miles after we thought it would end. It’s horrible when your expectations don’t match reality! Now that is “suffering”.
The end of the ride was at the bottom of a 2 mile long gravel road that led to the camp. We parked our bike and waited for a ride up. I was stung by a wasp while waiting. Yowsah! Sheila got the bee sting stuff out of our first aid kit and I quickly felt better. We drove up to the camp and found a cabin to sleep in.
Our beds were plywood sheets on iron bed frames. We had Thermarest mattresses from Bill and Sooz (Thanks, guys!) and sleeping bags for this one night. It didn’t turn out too badly. At least we were warm. We had veggie burgers for dinner. I took a dip in the creek. We both had massages. Then our day was done.
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