With a shorter route today, I opted to sleep in until 7:30am. Laura was kind enough to make me breakfast before I hit the road; what a great way to start today's ride. After Laura left for work, I was on the road by 8:45am. Much like the conclusion of yesterday, I had a strong tailwind pushing me eastward through the Camas Prairie for about 25 miles. Eventually, I stopped for a break near a man made reservoir. When stopped here, a gentleman pulled up in his vehicle and asked if I knew where Featherville was. I looked it up and found out it was about 90 minutes from where we were in the opposite direction, which was the direction the man had just driven from. When I shared this, he mentioned that it might be time to use his map. He thanked me and drove back toward Fairfield. Along the highway, I stopped to take some photos where the Craters of the Moon welcome sign was. While here, I chatted with two vacationers that were from Kentucky. We happily took turns taking photographs for each other and continued further into Craters of the Moon. The next 11 miles or so were the most challenging of the day due to a considerable shift in the wind. What had been a tailwind turned into a fickle wind that was sometimes a north to south crosswind, vice versa, or a strong headwind. Conditions like these usually mean that one is in for rain or sometimes a potent storm. The latter looked like a possibility, but the storm front miles ahead of me appeared to be blowing north and away from my eastward trajectory. What happened next was unexpected. By the time this formerly northerly moving storm reached the mountains, it bounced back south where it had just come from. This change reminded me of basketball: the point guard (storm) driving down the lane only to be rejected by the center (mountains). It was like nothing I've seen before from a storm's movement. Toward the end of a long ascent, I put on my rain jacket just as it began to rain. Within 15 minutes, the temperature had plunged nearly 25 degrees. By this time, the wind had subsided and a steady rain fell. Truly, I would take riding through rain over riding and navigating through strong winds that had variable direction. Everything but my hands were warm. I periodically took one hand off of the handlebar at a time to quickly flex my hand into a fist. I found if I didn't do this often enough, my hands would have inadequate circulation. Shortly before reaching the Lava Flow Campground, the rain stopped and the sun was out again. Within 25 minutes, almost everything was dry again: what a strange phenomenon. After setting up camp and having a dehydrated dinner, I explored the seven mile paved loop around a portion of the park by bike. It was most liberating to ride without gear; unbound, it was. There were many interesting features around this part of Craters of the Moon, and there were many other areas of the park that I (or anyone) wouldn't be able to cover in an afternoon's time. Some parts of this lava flow extended upwards of 50 miles to the south! My words will fall short of describing this unique place. The one word that came to mind time and time again while exploring was extraterrestrial. Riding around after reaching the camping destination for the day definitely made me feel a little more spent than I usually feel. I turned in around 9:00 in hopes of getting adequate rest for a long ride tomorrow.
