No alarms this morning, slept until 8 and tried to ignore reality a bit longer.  But Cyndy was hungry and there was no stopping her.  So after a couple of grunts Steve was up too and we rode off to The Big Apple (not NY) for breakfast.  Good eats and nice folks.  Then off to the bike shop for a little needed maintenance. John (yup another one) the mechanic there was very nice and gave me run of his shop, got the chains cleaned (actually Brian, the high school kid did that for us) and some other minor checking all for 20 bucks.  The bike shop was in a huge store that had everything hunting, camping & sports related.  Cyndy did find a cooler but still resisted from adding to her chariot, FYI dry ice was available in town!

Took a quick ride around town and off to the local museum.  Here we met Amelia and Roxanne, a couple of MIT students (just graduated).  They are on the last legs of a Boston to SF trip.  We probably spent an hour exchanging information and enjoyable experiences.  They are the 5th group we have met and the 4th we have spoken with.  It’s funny how the stories are similar and the subjects we speak of are the same.  More great folks to write home about.

The White Pine museum was much larger than we expected and had some interesting stuff about the local mining industry, telegraph communications, train system and the pony express.   One item that really caught Steve’s eye was an old refrigerator in one of the displays because his parents have the exact same model still in use.

As Steve writes, Cyndy is out “hunting & gathering” (turns out to be Oreo’s & strawberries, Velveeta & carrots, donuts & bagels, what a horrible dietitian, so conflicted over what to eat out here!) But she had fun people watching & chatting with the locals.  They all complained how hot it was.  Laundry officially done & dried.  Today seems to have less wind which is a tease, more clouds.  The hills surrounding are pretty but the weather is heating up.

For once Cyndy doesn’t have songs in her head…the last few days there was a theme “we’re on the road to nowhere” and the first few days “it’s the end of the world as we know it” popped in.

See more photos of this leg