Idaho & my 21st birthday, 4K style

Our days in Idaho had one common theme: Falls!! Waterfalls on waterfalls on waterfalls :)

Our route was Idaho Falls to American Falls to Twin Falls to Mountain Home.

As you can see we avoided those mountains ;)

There's not much to say about these days; they were pretty boring, just a bunch of biking.

• Some nice scenery.
• We had a really really windy day.
• For one of these days I was in the water van with Joanna. It was a hot and boring day so I tried to chalk interesting things on the road to entertain riders.
• On that day Zach accidentally stole a water cooler from our host and Joanna and I had to drive it 60 miles back after we were already almost at the host. Good job Zach :P
• We were following closely to the Oregon Trail :) There were a lot of educational signs to tell us about the history of the areas.

Wind farm.... a BAD sign when you're biking -___-

Meredith decided to stop and pick some potatoes for dinner.... Idaho problems.

 A storm rolling in! This is what it looks like when we're about to get rained on.

 Educational sign Exhibit A

 Pretty scenery

 Riding Old Oregon Trail Road

 Impressive buttes (lol)

 Just biking the old Oregon Trail... NBD!

 Wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail!!! I will not hear talk of them being ATV ruts.

They are wagon ruts.



Air conditioning during lunch = naptime.

Even if we're on a concrete floor. 4K OK.

And then: My 21st birthday! We were headed from Mountain Home to Caldwell, Idaho.

On my 21st birthday I awoke to find four of my teammates standing over my
sleeping bag, playing a terrible rendition of Happy Birthday on various instruments.
It was Paul on the guitar, Porter on the recorder, Becky on the djembe drum, and
Dan on some especially awful vocals. It was still dark in the room and as soon as
I was coherent enough to realize what was going on I was cracking up for like 15
minutes. After Happy Birthday they continued with one or two more songs as an
encore performance. It was so bad but most definitely the best wakeup I’ve had on
the 4K so far. Actually, possibly in my entire life since I am far from being a morning
person. I definitely don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard at 6 am.

Me with birthday stuff that my awesome roomie Rachel had sent me :)

Mom update: On my bday she got a port put in for her chemo, which will be targeting her liver. Currently she is recovering from the major abdominal surgery she had last week, where she had 1/3 of her colon removed because of the tumor. Recovery will be another 2ish weeks and then she will begin chemo. The port will make it easier for the chemo drugs to be administered throughout the body. She was still in a lot of pain and discomfort from the surgery but was in good spirits as usual. She finally got to leave the hospital the next day!

Our hosts had prepared us an awesome breakfast. When I went to get my bike ready to ride I discovered a special surprise: a birthday flat! My tire had gone flat overnight. I tried to start changing it, couldn’t get the tire off, and promptly announced, “It’s my birthday and I’m not dealing with this.” I then went for Plan B which was using Tom’s back tire, because he was in the van. Thank you Tom!! If I had had to change my tire on my birthday there might’ve been a rendition of “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”

We got on the road and I wore my “Kiss me it’s my birthday” pin that Rachel had
sent me :) My group was Sarah, Julie, and Dave Wolfe, and we called ourselves Team
Birthday Club.

The first 40 miles of the day, until we got to Boise, we were on the interstate again...
thank you, lack of paved roads in Idaho. The interstate was pretty easy – flat with a
clear shoulder – until we got to the outskirts of Boise. At that point it got really dicey
with lots of traffic moving lots of directions, and I was kind of freaking out. We had to
go about 5 more miles until we got off, and I was really nervous the whole time. But
we made it.

At the water stops, Kiera and Ashley had a birthday playlist cued up for the water
van. All the songs had to do with birthdays :) They also did a shark circle around me
as I rolled into the water stop… and Kiera was chanting “Cake cake cake cake” for
some reason I still don’t know.

My group got 4 flats which was totally a bummer… I just wanted to get to the
host on my birthday. But you can’t be mad about flats. It isn’t anyone’s fault. I was
cheered up by us stopping at Burger King, where Sarah got us free ice cream :)

We changed one of the flats next to this extremely depressing farm.

These goats and sheep and ducks were living in filth :(

It was supposed to be a 71-mile day, but it turned into more like 75 because of a
reroute for construction.

What a great birthday present!!! We saw our first sign for Portland :)

Dinner on my birthday was awesome! They had mashed potatoes, pork, salad, and a
ton of watermelon for us. I was super happy about it. Our host was a brand new host
but was really excited about us, super helpful and nice, and very interested in our
cause. We all introduced ourselves after dinner and they asked us to do our cheer
for them since they wouldn’t see it in the morning.

After dinner my team surprised me with a birthday card and a cake!

I was lucky because Ashley is an event planner in real life and Chelsea is my roommate... so between the two of them, they knew what to do to make my birthday special :) The card had a lot of cows on it – enough cows for each person to sign it and claim their own cow. It was perfect for my team since we like cows and we always moo at them.

Then it was time to go celebrate. The plan was for the 21+’s to go to Boise from
Caldwell, about a 25-minute drive, and go to a bar. We had a couple of hotel rooms
Jared managed to get donated to us, so we didn’t have to worry about driving back
until the morning.

It took us girls about an hour and a half to get ready in the bathroom. We are not
used to being girls on this trip. We had to re-learn how to do our hair and makeup.
Gina straightened my hair with her mini straightener, which took a solid 50 minutes,
and then Ashley somehow managed to curl hers with the straightener. The poor
boys were outside waiting for us wondering what in the world had happened to us
in the bathroom.

Finally we rolled out, checked in to the hotel around 9:30, and got ready
to go out. We asked the front desk where to go and we were in downtown Boise so
their recommendations were only 8 blocks away. The bar we went to was Mulligan’s, and it was my first bar experience. It was really fun! My first drink was a lemon drop, which was my free birthday drink and which I had with Ashley.

Thanks to my teammates for buying me drinks and to Ashley for spending a lot
of money on the jukebox trying to make sure her requested songs came on. Her
requested songs happened to be Justin Bieber… and she entertained us with a solo
dance. It was a really fun night and my teammates were such great company.

I decided to have selfie photoshoots with all my teammates... so here's a selection of those:

Ashley :)

 Joanna!

Dan!

We didn’t get back to the hotel until close to 3 am. Wakeup was at 5.... You do the
math. No one was feeling great that morning. Luckily I was scheduled to
be in the van, but some other people were not in any shape to ride either, so we had
some extra van passengers that day. It was all good. I got to take a nice nap in the food van.

So that was Idaho and my birthday! I couldn't have asked for a better day with better friends. I mean, who else gets to say that they biked 75 miles in Idaho and then celebrated at a random bar in Boise?! I am living the life!

Wifi has been extremely spotty so I apologize for the delay, but stay tuned for posts soon on Hells Canyon and OREGON!!

XOXO,

Mary

WHYoming? Because it was awesome!

So Wyoming was totally out of our way.... 

Something's off about point D....

Obviously we could've gone from Utah into Idaho and saved ourselves a lot of time. But why would we do that when we could see more awesome things?!

So in typical 4K fashion we added like 400 miles to our trip and backtracked east to go to Wyoming. Because Jackson!!!

The day started with a not-so-bright and early (the sun wasn’t up yet) of 4 am. We wanted to get to Jackson ASAP! The principal of the high school and his wife were nice enough to come in at that ridiculously early time and cook us breakfast. We looooove getting eggs for breakfast!!

Getting on the road right at sunrise!

At our dedication circle that morning, I announced to my teammates the news of my mom’s diagnosis. Some had heard already and some had not, but since I was dedicating the day’s ride to my mom I filled everyone in on the news. What happened next was really cool. One by one a lot of my teammates said “I’m also riding for Mary’s mom.” I think about 8 people did. And nobody rode for anyone else but her that day. I was so touched by their support.

After taking a deep breath and composing myself it was time to get on the road. With 108 hilly miles on the agenda there was definitely no time to waste.

The first 60-ish miles were rolling hills, a total lack of civilization and cell service, and COLD!! It was in the 50s until we'd been on the road for 4 hours. 

A cow crossing the road!!! We were thrilled to finally see cattle out in the "open range" area.
(Yes obviously we mooed at them)

Rolling hills in Eastern Idaho

I wore my jacket, but wished I had also dug out my gloves and leg warmers! I couldn't feel my fingers or toes until about 10 am. Around the time it finally warmed up, we threw our jackets into the water van as it passed, then crossed into Wyoming rather anticlimactically as there was no state sign... our water van drivers wrote “Welcome to Wyoming!!!!” on the road… so at least there was that.

Around mile 60, there was a sudden change where the ride became absolutely awesome. We entered the Tetons, and everything was green and alive and the Snake River appeared to our right about 500 feet below us. 

We were oohing and ahhing so much at the river that we had to get off our bikes to stare at it for a while. It was teal in color!! The winding, fast-moving river against the mountains was an amazing sight to bike next to… and we got to do that for 50 miles!

Becky and Joanna!

We saw a lot of whitewater rafters and we did consider ditching our bikes and rafting because it looked like so much fun.

Our lunch stop that day was amazing – a bike trip company in Jackson basically gave our food van all of their leftovers, so in addition to pizza we also had tons of stuff to make sandwiches with that we don’t normally get: pulled pork, lunch meat, vegetables, mustard, feta cheese. You might be thinking that sounds like an awfully strange combination to get excited about, but to that I will simply say: 4K OK.

Everyone was in a pretty fantastic mood leaving the lunch stop and we were ready to tackle the last beautiful 30 miles into Jackson. As we neared the city and were only 10 miles out, we encountered construction and some very heavy traffic. While we were waiting in the traffic a lady got out of her car to inform us that there was another road we could take on the other side of the river that was “a beautiful ride.” Intrigued but skeptical, we asked if it was the same distance, and she said yes.

Having no cell service, we couldn’t fact-check her info. It was either wait in the heavy and slightly dangerous traffic jam, or trust the random lady and take the road less traveled, literally.

Trust the random lady we did. We crossed the river to the road she suggested and immediately faced a sizeable hill. Groaning to ourselves, we trudged up it, but then realized that if the road bordered the river, it couldn’t possibly get much higher than the other side. Sarah promptly got a flat… but we weren’t even bummed because we got to stare at the awesome scenery the whole time. After taking care of the flat we continued along and were happy we took the detour because we were getting some amazing views being up that high that we would've missed on the other side! 

Moral of the story: Always trust strangers!

We rolled in to Jackson just before 6 pm! 

Not too bad for a 108-mile day for sure. Biking into the town was pretty nasty as it was rush hour and there was a ton of traffic and no shoulder. But drivers were very courteous. Jackson is a VERY outdoorsy town and people are well accustomed to cyclists. We were super excited while riding in because Jackson is awesome! It has such a western and welcoming feel. I was also recognizing things from when my family was in Jackson 8 years ago.

The logistics for our stay in Jackson were pretty complicated. We were to go camping our first night, split up for various touring activities on our rest day and then stay in homestays our second night. We decided having a central location to leave our bikes and luggage at would make things 10 times easier – the only problem is that real estate is crazy in Jackson, space is a top commodity, and not a lot of places even HAVE the space to store all our stuff let alone be willing to take it. Not to mention this week was literally THE height of tourist season in Jackson and things were crazy everywhere.

Luckily, the Lexington Hotel in downtown Jackson agreed to help us out, but not before quite a bit of coaxing. They agreed to take our bags but not our bikes, and we were still looking for a place for our bikes until like 4 pm, when they gave in and said we could store our bikes there too. Thank you Ed and Frank!!! (Ed is the GM and Frank was the one that did the convincing :)

It ended up being a perfect situation and the logistics fell into place quite smoothly. We stored our bags and bikes in The Lexington’s meeting room (which luckily wasn’t being used for 2 days) and were able to use their pool house for showers. I had set up a pizza donation from Pinky G’s for our dinner (best pizza we’ve had all trip), so the food van had time to go and set up our campsite while everyone was showering and eating, that way we wouldn’t have to set it up in the dark.

It wasn’t until about 9:00 that everyone was showered, fed, and ready to go, so at that point we headed to the campsite. Everyone packed their bookbag with their camping and rest day stuff and left the bulk of our bags at the hotel.

We camped at Shadow Mountain, which was a free campsite on the side of the Tetons! We didn’t get a good view of it at night because it was dark when we arrived, but in the morning it was gorgeous! It was about a 40-minute drive north of Jackson and involved driving up a really steep, gravelly mountain. Our van actually had a bit of trouble getting up there!! Once we arrived, everyone was exhausted, but in typical 4K fashion that did not mean it was bedtime. Some of the boys made a campfire and we all hung out playing games and talking late into the night.

Some people were paranoid about bears so we enjoyed pretending to be bears. We kept all the food in the van, though, so we weren’t really too worried. Also, our campsite had no bathrooms or water but that was 4K OK, I mean we’re used to using the great outdoors as our restroom every day anyway, and we have 4 giant water jugs so we just filled those up and brought them. I surprised myself because before this trip there is no chance I would’ve camped somewhere so primitive, but now it was totally fine. It was really fun to camp with the team!

In the morning we had a rude awakening at 6:45 by Joanna honking the van’s horn. Everyone needed to get up so we’d have enough time for rest day activities!! As we exited our tents, we made the interesting discovery that we had accidentally camped in a parking lot…. Oops. So that’s why it was so gravelly.

For the rest day, some people went to Yellowstone, some went hiking in the Tetons, and some went rafting on the Snake River. I opted for Yellowstone! I have been there before, about 8 years ago with my family, and I loved it so I wanted to go again with my team.

The drive to Yellowstone ended up being close to three hours, which for me meant naptime. When we got there we saw Old Faithful and then drove around to a lot of the other attractions: the hot springs, another geyser, the paint pots, bacteria mats, etc. I had forgotten how big the park was! Thanks to the van drivers that day because driving was a lot of work…and the rest of us slept every time we were in the van. Everything was just as beautiful as I remembered it!

Unfortunately half a day in Yellowstone is not nearly enough to explore it, but we did see a lot of cool stuff. Everyone enjoyed it. We arrived back in Jackson with about an hour to spare before our host families were to pick us up for the night, so we walked around downtown Jackson and shopped/ate ice cream. Nitkin enjoyed comparing the town to Aspen (he obviously though Aspen far superior). It is an adorable town but definitely undeniably touristy.

Our hosts picked us up from the hotel, and I was with Erin Neary along with Joanna, Sarah, Dave Wolfe, Paul, and Maroun. Though Erin was one of the first hosts to arrive I had to wait for everyone to get picked up since I was the one to coordinate these homestays. It was also a mail drop and one of our hosts was dropping off a carful of mail, so it was chaos in the hotel until all the mail was sorted through and everyone was off to their separate homestays.

Erin put us up in her apartment above the Anvil Motel, which was only one block away from the Lexington. Not only were we right in downtown Jackson but her apartment was awesome and the king-size bed I got to sleep in was literally a cloud. It was amazing.

To top that off, Erin took us out to dinner – at the restaurant she owns! She is the GM at Nani’s Cucina Italiana, an awesome Italian restaurant in downtown Jackson. Obviously this was right up my alley. We were all wide-eyed in wonder at the amazing food we got to eat. We basically just asked her what to order and she told us – I got the melone pasta, and I was kind of skeptical about melons being in pasta but it turned out to be absolutely delicious just like she said. She also got us an assortment of appetizers as well as a giant tiramisu for dessert. 

Paul got wine so he was a happy camper!

Melone pasta.. delicious!!

Giant tiramisu that was gone in about 10 seconds
 

Slightly blurry, but: Paul, Maroun, Joanna, Erin, Dave, me, and Sarah!

I did NOT want to wake up in the morning. In fact, everyone realized they didn't want to leave their homestays so the night before we had pushed back our departure time by a full hour. That was good but I still wanted to stay in the cloud-bed forever.

In the morning Erin cooked us eggs and pancakes... so we got a breakfast cooked by a chef!! We considered ourselves pretty lucky.

Because everyone was all over the place, we were REALLY late getting on the road that morning. I think the relaxed vibe of the town had gotten to us even in one day of being there. Oops. 

That morning, my grandparents showed up to see us off! They drove all the way from St. Louis to come out and visit me on my trip. I was very happy to see them!!

Heading out of Jackson, we had Teton Pass in store for us at the very beginning of our 88 mile ride. Teton Pass was no joke!!

Just another day on the 4K....

Just before I went up the mountain (and also lost cell service for the rest of the day) I got a call from my parents saying that my mom's cancer was confirmed to be colon cancer and that they were going to do major abdominal surgery to remove 1/3 of her colon right then. It was a lot of information to process in a short amount of time. I was glad that she had a diagnosis, but now I was worrying about her surgery and what this diagnosis meant for our family.

It was ironic that I got that call right at the base of the mountain pass. It was kind of symbolic for me as the mountain represented the battle in front of us. I thought about that on the way up and whenever it got hard I pictured my mom at the top of the mountain. I kept in mind that when the going gets tough, I may be able to get off my bike to get immediate relief, but when my mom is recovering from her surgery and getting treatment in the coming months, she won't have the option of getting immediate relief from her pain. Thinking of that made me all the more determined to get up the mountain, and assured me that I would fight through without stopping. 

Ok fine, I did stop once, to get this awesome picture!

At a 10-15% grade for 5 miles, Teton Pass is one of the toughest climbs by bike in America. It was really challenging. With every pedalstroke it seemed like you covered very little ground. It was very steep, with no breaks in the difficulty for the full 5 miles. But it wasn't too much for Team Portland. Everyone made it up the mountain and as usual we celebrated at the top :) 

The descent from Teton Pass was my favorite of the trip so far! It was a 10% grade downhill for 6 miles. That is VERY steep and steep = speed. It was scary but super fun. There were some tight turns but not too many, so I let myself go pretty fast, and hit 39 mph. Funnnnn :) At the bottom we crossed back into Idaho.

And we found a Wyoming sign at this border... YAY!

The rest of the day was filled with more pretty scenery, and not much else to talk about! My mom's surgery went well and they removed the tumor. I didn't get to talk to her after it because she was all drugged up and resting, but I talked to my dad.

Jackson was incredible and I'm so glad we added it to our agenda even though it sounded crazy. The rides into and out of Jackson were two of my favorite of the entire ride so far, camping was a great experience, Yellowstone was awesome, and our homestays were great. Thank you, Wyoming, for a wonderful 48 hours! ;)

My mom's diagnosis

I debated whether I wanted to write this post or not. I like to keep things to myself and am normally a pretty private person. But in the end I decided to write about it for two reasons: one, my mom's diagnosis has become a major part of the rest of the trip for me, and it would be hard to overlook on my blog. Two, many of my readers are close with my family or my parents, and would be interested in hearing how it plays into my ride. So here it is.

July 22nd started out just like any other day on the 4K. We got a slow start from Logan because of the dorms, but it wasn't a big deal because it was "only" a 78-mile day. Basically by now, any mileage under 80 means a short day.

At mile 20, we crossed into Idaho!

It was a lot of rolling hills, a lot of desert, and not a lot of towns. We were pretty much on the same road the entire day, so we were just chugging along.

A small town we passed through - check out the Western vibe!

Reservoir

We stopped to pet a horse..

Really cool looking farm

We were out in the middle of nowhere for most of the day and nobody had cell service. At the lunch stop we were informed that the last group was wayyyy behind us and the water van wasn't sure if they'd be able to get us another water stop before the end of the day. They told us there was a gas station about 12 miles down the road and that we should stop and refill there in case we didn't get another water stop.

When we stopped I checked my phone while waiting for my teammates to go to the bathroom, and saw I had a text from my mom. She was asking me if I had time to call her later. The tone of it was slightly out of the ordinary and I just had a bad feeling about it. Since I had time anyway while I was waiting I called her right away. She picked up and I asked her if everything was okay.

Immediately I could tell it was not. I asked repeatedly what was wrong and became more frantic as she struggled to tell me. A million possibilities rushed through my mind, escalating in severity as I heard the emotion in her voice. Finally she told me the news that she has cancer.

I never expected those words to come out of my mom's mouth. I would've expected anything but that. How could this happen? My mom isn't even 50 and she's the healthiest person I know. I actually wrote a little about that in this post, after she joined me for a 40-mile training ride on her 20-year old mountain bike (aka at a huge disadvantage, and still kept up with me).

If you think I'm crazy for biking across the country, you should see my mom. She exercises 6 days a week, no matter how busy she is -- and with a daily 2-hour commute, job with the Department of Defense and three active children, if anyone has an excuse not to work out, it's her, but she does it every day anyway. She'll be up at 4 am if she has to. She also eats super healthy and is an amazing cook -- she's always fed my family top notch food. She has never smoked and never puts anything bad into her body at all. We always joke about how she is going to live forever and she says she is going to have to engage in "risky behaviors" after the age of 70 so she doesn't "overstay her welcome."

So needless to say this news put me in complete and total shock. I immediately went into hysterics, unable to believe this and overwhelmed with fear. My parents both talked to me and explained the situation. In a routine physical it was discovered that my mom's liver enzyme levels were a big high. Not an immediate cause for concern, but she needed to get a CT scan to check it out.

That scan came back with more questions, and she needed to get a PET scan and then a biopsy. Her tests revealed multiple lesions on her liver, which were then confirmed to be cancer. The doctors believed that the liver was not the primary source and were preparing to do more tests to find the primary source. They didn't know any more detail at this point but expected to have a diagnosis and a stage in a few days.

Still in shock outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, my teammates had realized I was getting bad news and were consoling me even while I was still on the phone. They led me to sit down in the shade and brought me the closest thing they could find to tissues: some ripped up paper towels. 4K OK.

It took me a while to collect myself and my teammates didn't rush me. Because of the delay in talking on the phone, another group rolled up to the gas station, and not being able to deal with being around that many people, that's when I got on my bike with Joanna and we rolled out quickly. 

As I struggled to try to process this news, I realized I was with the best group of people I could possibly be with for this. Many people on my team have had parents diagnosed with cancer, some of whom have survived it and some who have lost their parents to it. When I found out I happened to be with Julie, Maroun, and Joanna -- Maroun's dad and Joanna's mom are currently undergoing treatment for cancer. If anyone understood what I was feeling at that moment it would be them.

In those last 7 miles I had so many questions running through my mind that I knew had no answers. I prayed a lot. Joanna and I talked a little but not too much. She pretty much knew when to talk and when not to talk, and I appreciated that. What we did do was ride really fast. I think I was taking out my frustration and shock on the road and Joanna kept up with me. We left the rest of our group far behind but I didn't even notice.

That night I was pretty quiet and upset, understandably so. Once I had showered I called my parents again to hear more details, since I wasn't really processing anything earlier. My team played the 4K Singles Dating game that we had come up with the day before, and I didn't announce anything to my team because I wasn't ready to talk about it and I didn't want to put a damper on the fun mood.

We also visited the geyser in Soda Springs!

Sunset in Soda Springs

I knew I was in for a rough night of sleep and unfortunately that has been a theme since. Luckily, I haven't had problems eating... probably because there's no physical way to not be hungry after the amount of biking I'm doing.

All I wanted to do was be home with my family. Once I found this out, nothing else mattered - literally nothing. Not the ride, not my sleep, not what I ate, not school. Just my mom and my family. I started thinking about leaving the ride and going home, but my mom said she wanted me to finish the ride, and I knew she wasn't lying because she knows how much work I've put into this ride and it will make her really happy to see me finish. Also she hates when people sit around doing nothing and she said there would be nothing for me to do at home - my dad was taking care of everything. I knew she was right but still just wanted to be with her. I figured I'd wait a few days until we had more details and then decide from there. At this point there were 18 days left on the ride.

Obviously it was a rough day. I had to accept the completely unexpected news. I had to come to terms with the fact that my life had changed permanently and things would never be the same no matter what. I had to struggle with my role in this. I need to be strong for my mom and I will. If there's anything this trip has taught me, it's definitely perseverance, and we are going to need that.

My dad made her a Facebook page, so you can friend her if you want to keep up with updates. I'll be honest and say I disagreed with him in making her one. Of course I appreciate all the supportive messages she's getting on it, but any time I see it I think of it as her cancer's Facebook profile and not hers. I don't like it. My mom is still my mom and is not defined by the disease inside of her. The fact that it was made right at this time makes it impossible for her page to not be defined by the cancer. However, my dad was receiving dozens of supportive messages via email and he needed a more streamlined way to both collect support and distribute news quickly. So it'll definitely be good for that.

So, I'll be finishing the ride in honor of my mom and what we are about to face, and then coming home to take care of her. Apparently my dad is doing a good job of it but we all know he is better at doing physics.