The dice came up snake eyes (since I'm on the Snake River of course :) and I got out of the hotel about 20 mins before sunrise this morning. And the sun didn't come up, it was blocked by clouds! Yay! What luck. I did have a bit of a headwind as I climbed out of the Treasure Valley onto the slightly undulating Snake River plain. The plain was laid down as successive lava flows of the last millions of years, and much of it is also old lake bed, from the time that the lava blocked the Snake River and formed Lake Idaho. When the dam broke, the theory is that it formed Hells Canyon, which is one the deepest canyons in the world.
The Federal Way out of Boise has a lovely bike path for most of it's length past the Boise Train Depot. There were the odd runners and bike commuters heading into town, and they all waved in a friendly way. Towards the end of the Federal Way, you come upon two miles of Micron Technology's campus, and lots of people speeding to work. The bike path is gone at this point, but there is a good size shoulder to ride on.
After about 8.5 miles you come upon the freeway, which is the only option for 30 miles of the way to Mountain Home, unless you want to go 15-20 miles around. In the heat, not a great idea....
I-84 has a nice shoulder, a fair amount of traffic, and one awesome, new rest area, which is also a historic marker for the Oregon Trail.
I-84 looking west back towards Boise
The highway designers in their wisdom killed off the old roads and put them all in one!
Mountain Home was 30 miles on the freeway
As I pedaled along across this barren lava plain, I thought, "well if I were with my family on a wagon, with all our animals and earthly possessions, maybe this would be more interesting." And then I thought about the nice air conditioned motel awaiting me after my day's ride.....
Those early pioneers must have been really desperate to spend so many months crossing what I've cycled in about a week. Either that, or someone really sold them a bill of goods about how easy the trail would be. This is harsh country, even in a car, and it's been interesting to think about what kinds of suffering those folks endured, especially when they were regularly attacked as intruders by the local indigenous peoples.
After the rest area/historical marker, I picked up a bit of a tailwind, and the road leveled out. I made really good time into Mountain Home, and I noodled around town to decide where I was going to stay. Sadly, the architecturally wonderful 50s motels looked like they were used more often for trysts for the nearby Air Force Base, than by real travelers, and it was back out to the freeway village for me.
I stopped for a bit at the lovely city park, and ate my delicious wrap purchased at WinCo Foods (a large, employee owned grocery store based in Boise, more about them later) then stopped in at the Sherriff's office to inquire about water on tomorrow's ride (a quite desolate 58 miles to the little town of Fairfield). Dropped into the Visitor Center (out in the freeway village of course) where I was welcomed quite warmly by the three women working there. Apparently they'd never had a cross country cyclist stop in, and they were full of questions. One of the women even asked if I would take her out to see my bike setup! Armed with a little more local knowledge, I settled on the Mountain Home Inn, which at $75 a night is a bit overpriced for this part of the world. Turns out that all three hotel/motels at the interchange are owned by the same company! Those evil monopolists are everywhere!
Since it was still quite early, and I needed to go shopping, I considered my alternatives: there was a local grocery store in town, as well as an Albertsons (headquartered in Boise by the way). However it was now 96 degrees, and it was a decent slog 3 miles uphill from town. There was a brand new Walmart Supercenter right here in the freeway village....
Now many of you know that I was on the board of Equal Rights Advocates for many years, which is represents the lead plaintiff in Dukes v. Walmart, the largest sex discrimination lawsuit ever filed in the US (and which the Supreme Court said was 'too big' for a class action lawsuit----this court would have said the same thing about slavery I'm sure). So I haven't stepped foot in a Walmart in at least ten years, and can say that maybe once or twice, stuck somewhere in middle America, I had to make a purchase there.
So I decided I would do my little shopping at Walmart (which totaled about $8) and nosy around the place for bit, to see what it was like. Here's what the walk to Walmart looked like:
Notice all the pedestrian and bike friendly improvements?
Well I was in some ways pleasantly surprised. They've clearly cleaned up the look of the stores from what I remember, and made them more modern and clean lined. Still not nearly as nice as a Target, or the local big box competitor, WinCo Foods, but there was a deli (with Italian prosciutto!), a bakery (but no bagels), and a lot of nice looking produce. Not what I was expecting.
No wifi---all of their competitors I've encountered on my trip have free wifi in their stores (Safeway, WinCo and Target), and surprisingly, higher prices than their local competitor, WinCo Foods. Also, less ecological packaging, for example, the wrap I bought, along with most of the pre-made deli sandwiches, were put into plastic clamshells, rather than recycled plastic wrapping.
You also felt like they didn't trust you as a customer. My hand basket had one of those plastic security things on it, and the self checkout kept saying that I had put an unauthorized item in the bagging area. I've been using the self checkouts most places, and this is the first time I've had that problem. I mentioned to the cashier, who had to unblock me a couple of times, that I felt like Walmart didn't trust me, and that I wouldn't be back. She laughed and said that until she started working in retail she never knew people stole so much stuff, but that she understood how I felt (she seemed to be a lonely Democrat here in Elmore County, but as it turns out, it's about the state average here. Obama only carried two counties, the homes of Sun Valley and the University of Idaho. Some of the rural Mormon counties were over 90% for Romney, check it out here http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/idaho/)
However, given that Walmart's prices were higher than the local competition, and the way they seem to treat their customers, you have to ask, why would you shop there? It's not surprising that their stock has been a dog for the last ten years, their business model is stale, and clearly their competitors have learned enough to beat them at their own game.
Another interesting thing I discovered yesterday in Boise is that Idaho taxes groceries. one of the very few states (probably all Red States) that does.
'Nuff said about that....tomorrow is the big climb, up at 4, out the door at 5 to beat the heat.
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