The beginning of the end

Yesterday we did 75 miles from new meadows to the Oregon state line. It was a hooooottt day, but that's howThomas and I like it. We like to start just late enough so that the sun has risen and is creating temperatures which to most are uncomfortable. This baking of the skin and our helmeted brains is what we live for. Mmm yes, we try REALLY hard to make sure we don't miss any of those peak UV rays; gotta keep our tan lines crisp and our pores sweatin'. What's the fun in touring if you don't sweat out 4 pounds of water each day--at LEAST. We ride until just before it's gonna start cooling down, ya know, to harness every last bit of maximum heatage. Love love loveeee it. Especially when we ride through Hell's Canyon. Aptly named.
Anyways, today we started early, just to try out what these newbs we've talked to have referred to as "beating the heat" (why you would want to beat something so nice I don't know; abuse is never fun). We started at 6 am since we had about 82 miles to ride to Baker City, Oregon. But Fate was our friend and on this Friday the 13th, she made sure we would still get some time in the scorching times of the day by giving me my second flat of the trip. Long story short I "fixed" it on my own only to have it give way mere miles later, so an hour and a half later I was giving my old tire to a fellow tourer in need and finally back on the road to tackle the 70 miles we had left.
It was a long day but a good day. I jammed to some rascal flatts and Keith urban in the last 40 miles and that made em fly by. We're now at an awesome warm showers host--thanks so much kathi!