Our Boise Send-Off

On Sunday, Jim & Patti took the opportunity to publicly celebrate our impending departure (I think they wanted it on record that we have promised to finally be out of their hair by the end of the week).  If I were in their shoes, long ago I would have started having nightmares about our resemblance to Matthew McConaughey's role in the movie Failure to Launch...

But seriously, their help to us the past nearly five months has been phenomenal, and we can't thank them enough for everything that they have done for us while we have been back in town.  We have achieved far more during this prolonged layover than we had thought possible (especially in spite of the rapidly increasing severity of my TIAD [Trump Induced Anxiety Disorder]).  Once we do finally hit the road again, we will be well equipped for dealing with any further misadventures that may come our way (and hopefully this time we will finally be leaving the Curse of Corwin Ford behind us).

Party decorations, plus Max & Lana.

Ralphie.

Denise Heald and Annette Schmidt seek shelter from a sun shower.

Denise, Patti Stevenson, Alea and Fred Mulder (back to camera).

Having missed an opportunity for a similar get together when we left Boise in 2015 (thanks to Corwin Ford's unethical handling of our special order van), we appreciated the chance to celebrate our second departure from Boise with a few of our friends (I was remiss, and failed to get pictures of too many people!).  The forecast rain mostly held off, and it was great to have one last chance to get caught up with everyone.

We are leaving town a little later than we had originally planned.  It was only today (Thursday) that our new axle and battery were installed, and our amended 2015 returns put in the mail.  And we had some last minute online purchases arrive today as well, including a new dust seal for our galley hatch.

Over the last several weeks, we have ridden, in stages, the first 140 miles of our route (during the rare days when the weather has been decent), from Boise to the Oregon border (just north of Brownlee Dam).  So when we head out tomorrow, we will resume cycling from there.

We've finally had a chance to field test our new privy tent, and to experiment with various alternative for waste disposal.  This particular opportunity was because we had camped at the Poppell Field RV Park in Emmett ($25, power, water, coin-op showers [$1 for four minutes], wi-fi, heated bathrooms): the bathroom doors are auto-locked electronically at 5 pm and don't reopen them until 7 am!  Where do they find RVers that have 14 hour bladders????  At least there is an emergency exit button, in case you are taking a shower when the door locks.  The privy worked out very well.