JULY 2001

Last time we sent an email we were in Missoula Montana and we said we thought we were going to sleep in a city park. Well, we tried, but a man of the law woke us up in the middle of the night and told us we had to leave. We complained and he told us we could jump the fence into the dog park and we would be ok. After a half hour of shuffling our gear we were on our way to getting some ZZZ’s, then about an hour later we heard a high pitched hissing sound.

Bill and his sleeping bag were soaked with high pressure water from the underground sprinkler system. We were quickly under way to relocate the tent again when the sprinklers went off. We felt relief. It was only temporary though, as a new set of sprinklers went on and drenched the rainflyless tent again. Finally at about 2:30 am the sprinklers shut down and we were able to get a little well-needed rest.

We are now in Twin Falls, Idaho, on our way toward the Utah border, to the City of Rocks for some climbing. We spent a week in Stanley, Idaho, whitewater kayaking, relaxing, and hiking with our parents. We tried a bike trail called Fisher Creek that was rated #5 in the Northwest by a major bike magazine.

Then we were off to Sun Valley where we spent another week being spoiled by Bill's Aunt Paula. Yesterday and today we spent riding through the blazing hot desert with only a steady head wind to cool us off. I'm about to get kicked off this computer so I have to close this up. We are meeting lots of people and telling them about your food. Things are going great except we probably will have skin cancer from all this sun, but oh well, at least we're out here.

One more thing that's kind of interesting: about 10 miles out of Challis, Idaho, Bill's remanufactured trailer hitch sheared off, but a nice guy by the name of Doyle took us to his house and let us use his welder to fix it. So I guess we're having good luck so far.

I’m having the time of my life. Meeting lots of cool people and seeing awesome places. People think we’re doing what they only dream about, and wish they could come with us. This is great!!!

Thank you so much. The food is pure fuel and seems to be lasting longer than expected.