North Bound

Our stint in Reno ended with Maggie climbing trees with some folks from the conference and Chief Sarah finding some much needed computer time. Ant Hill climbed out of the Littlest Big City to cruise over to Truckee via the gorgeous Highway 431 with views of Mt. Rose and Lake Tahoe. We spent the night with J.D., Maggie's brother and ate tacos and watched the Red Wings crush the Ducks. With just an hour and half drive ahead of us the following day to visit friends in Portola, CA we enjoyed a relaxed morning of jogs along the Truckee River and cruising downtown.

Portola was our last city in California on the tour. We visited with Sarah's friends from her SCA days and enjoyed a steak BBQ and chasing around Bell and Cedar, the Kooyman children. Goodbye California-we're headed north to Idaho!

What seemed like the longest drive of the tour, we journeyed through Nevada, Oregon and finally Idaho to our Boise House Party. Great thanks to Jill and Ron for hosting us and allowing Nellie to play Goldilocks in their beautiful house--is their bed more comfortable or the giant orange bean bag to lie on?!? We had a wonderful party and received the best road trip gift from Ron-new music for the Ipod-Billboard's Top 100 Songs from 1950 to 2003! DJ Doherty has never been so happy.

From Boise we travelled north to Moscow for our final house party on Tour de Pants. What a beautiful drive following the Salmon River in the sunshine. Our best to host, Caroline for a wonderful party and some great grilled vegetables. The guests really got into the pants--both literally and figuratively--even testing out the mobility of the pants in various yoga poses. What a great group of women in Moscow!

With the sun just beginning to set on the mountains, we packed up our gear for one last time and hit Highway 12 to put some miles under our belts before our final leg home to White Sulphur Springs. We parked along the Clearwater River and woke to the sound of rain tapping on the rig, and as we ate scrambled eggs and avocado, the skies cleared and we loaded into the truck, making our way into Mountain Standard Time.