I drove up to Kellogg on the Friday before the ride and got checked in. I put my bike in the bike corral at the Silver Mountain Resort and then drove to the Wal Mart in Smelterville to park and sleep. I found that the rear seat of the pickup is designed for someone that is about 5’3” tall to sleep in. I had to get up in the middle of the night to use the facilities in Wal Mart and purchase some chocolate milk for breakfast in the morning. It cooled down quite a bit during the night and the windows fogged up. I slept pretty good considering that I was unable to straighten my legs out.I got up the next morning, cleared the windows and drove to the resort. Once there I got my bike and got into my biking gear. The 100 mile ride to Plummer and back was set to start at 8:00 so I went ahead and took off 10 minutes early. As I rode out of Kellogg towards Smelterville my glasses started misting up from the fog that was still hanging over the Silver Valley. By the time I got to Cataldo the fog had lifted and I had made it to the first rest stop of the day. This rest stop was a welcome sight since I wanted to get a banana and some more food to snack on while riding. After getting supplies it was back on the bike and heading down the trail to the next rest stop at Medimont. I saw some geese and ducks during this portion of the trail and that was all that was seen all the way to Plummer. I did notice that the water levels were pretty low all along the trail. I made it to the rest stop at Medimont with no issues and headed on to Harrison. After Harrison it was on to Plummer and then back down to Harrison for lunch. Lunch consisted of a nice turkey sandwich, bag of chips, brownie, and water. After lunch it was back on the trail towards Kellogg. Saw some Woolly Bear caterpillars between Medimont and Cataldo. I noticed that I had 107 miles on the GPS when I got to Kellogg so I decided to ride another 1.5 miles past the finish to try and make it an even 110 miles. I ended up getting 109.7 miles for the day. I took all of my stuff over to the middle school to take a shower and get my bed set up for the evening. Went back to the resort for dinner and the evening program. Got back to the middle school and found a basketball to shoot around for a while before going to bed.
Got up Sunday morning after a better sleep on an air mattress and headed over to the resort to have breakfast. This was going to be a good day since I would get to ride the full route of Kellogg – Wallace – Burke – Wallace – Mullen – Wallace – Kellogg for a total of 50 miles. The ride from Kellogg to Wallace went pretty quick and I took a little bit of a detour before getting to the road that led to Burke. The road up to Burke was amazing with all of the history of mining that went on in this area. It was a nice climb and there was not much traffic. The wind was in my face going back down to Wallace so I was not able to get going very fast. Once I got back to Wallace I headed on towards Mullen. It was pretty smooth going and I ended up going past the Mullen rest stop to go to the actual end of the trail. I then went back to the rest stop to get something to eat and drink. After getting refueled I headed back towards Wallace/Kellogg to finish out the ride.
About 3 miles out of Kellogg I heard a pretty load thunk, thunk, thunk sound coming from the freeway to my right. I looked over and noticed a car carrier with several cars on it. The hood on the first car had come unlatched and was smacking into the windshield. Not going to be a good day for the driver of that semi that day.
Once I got back to the resort I had a couple slices of pizza and loaded everything in the pickup to head home.
I would really like to thank all of the people that donated to the MS Society this year for me and I would like to thank Matt Morra for the rear wheel that he loaned me.
