'Letting the days go by- water flowing underground.'

New Meadows fog
see all photos »

I had a lovely river ride toward New Meadows.  Met with my Scottish friend again and we rode together for a while.  He seems to be having terrible luck with punctures and I let him carry one of my spare tubes for the day- just in case.  I stopped at a hotsprings and had a lovely soak and turned in early.  I think I was asleep for the better part of 12 hours. I awoke to thick fog all around me.  Absolutely everything that was not in the tent was soaked.  Got a very late start trying to guard myself and my gear against the cold and damp.  I could see the sun trying to burn its way through, but failing badly.

A lovely cruise down to the little town of Council.  Did some grocery shopping and had a long pizza lunch.  I think you'll all be as delighted as I am to hear that I have stopped losing weight- or actually that I've stopped gaining weight- I don't know, but I couldn't finish the whole pizza!  I had leftovers!  You don't know how nice it is to not be hungry all of the time.  In the pizza parlor the radio station was playing the best music.  Must have been a college station.  Besides U2 and the Talking Heads and Ryan Adams, and I just was struck down by them playing a song from the movie "Once" that I saw back in Chicago!  So beautiful and touching.

More Elk City friends caught me on the road on their way to a wedding.  A nice chat and they even passed me some fresh vegetables- no longer just a low calorie waste of time, but precious, precious, delicious food!  In Cambridge I stayed in a cute old hotel/motel where, even though it was pretty cheap, it was super cute and the quilt on the bed was hand made and for the first time on this trip I made a point of not sitting and eating on it, because I was probably dirtier than it.