We're parked at the KOA RV Park up the Pocatello Creek road from the mechanics at Doctor D's. I checked out this road on Google Maps and Google Earth and though it looked like it would form a loop with Buckskin road, I couldn't see the road connecting the two on the satellite view (in Google Maps). I figured that it was a dirt road at that point if anything.

On Thursday morning I headed on my bike up the road to go to the end of the payment, at least, and maybe to find the connecting road. It was so beautiful and so quiet, rising right off Interstate 15. And best of all it was a steady climb, just keep rotating those pedals, and you'd keep going up. I climbed overall 1,100'.

The hills around here in southern Idaho are brown with sometimes a few junipers, and the pines are only in the higher gulley's where there is water. The creeks are running even now at the beginning of fall, as the mountains are quite high, and as I climbed up the pines combined with the deciduous trees and their smell became part of the air.

The day was warm and the sights and the feel resonated strongly with my childhood memories from Boise, across the state, but still southern Idaho. I'm filled with Idaho and it is for me unlike anywhere else in the world. It's nothing I consciously think, and it rises from primordial regions in my brain. I cruise on within its grip.

The payment ends, and I don't want to ride on the gravel to get to the other road so I turn around in an area nestled as though it were high in the pine covered mountains. It's downhill all the way back, the only trouble with climbing up a road. On Saturday I'll get to take the group ride/race in roads near this one.

On Friday I took another climb up Pocatello Creek and cranked it up a bit. No glorying in the feelings of the air, just pump it out. Get ready for the next day.

On Saturday morning, I'm down in old town Pocatello and ready for the Endurance Festival. Turns out there are few folks signed up for the 65 KM bike run, most just want to take on the flatlands of the 45 KM run. I'm looking forward to climbing through the hills above Inkom. Both races start together and spilt at Inkom.

The run to Inkom is fast and I'm third getting to the feed station. I eat quickly and head out to climb the hills on my own. Thankfully the head wind that we fought on the way to Inkom turns into a tail wind and that helps get me up the hills in good shape. I'm about bonked by the time I get to the summit at 6,000'.

I get a little lost on the way back to town as there is no one around, but I find some folks coming back from the 45 km run and join up with them as we wind our way away from town at first to get over the railroad tracks. This town is dominated by the railroad.

A great day of riding and it was good to have a few folks around to make me pedal harder. A race only in one's mind (as always).

Sunday we head to Boise. The truck has a new thermostat, new lift fuel pump (FASS), new headlights, new fog lights, new steering box, new seat heater switch (to be mailed next week), new batteries, new electrical connections. We're ready to roll. (No new injection pump.)