Another day, another 40 miles

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Great cycling day today. Our biggest challenge is that our device chargers have stopped charging and there is no place around here to buy more. So we are in strict conservation mode here.



Dave had to ride today without his honky tonk tunes. We did manage to charge his iPod today - the charger gave the last true measure of devotion. So tomorrow Dave can sing along until his speakers quit ... probably before we get to our 54 miles.



Today we rode from Kellogg, through Wallace, to Mullan and the official end of the trail. We wanted to ride the Hiawatha, but 14 miles, 1500 feet gain on a gravel road with logging truck traffic all combined to convince us to go to our plan B. Plan B has us leaving St Marie Thursday early and driving to the start, doing the trail early, and then driving like the wind for Billings. So that’s our plan for now.



So Wallace, ID is a cute town. All of it’s downtown buildings are on the National Historic Register. How did that happen you ask? Well, when the plan was to take I-90 through the downtown and demolish it, a concerned local citizen first got a court injunction due to a missing environmental impact statement, and then worked to get the downtown recognized as an historic place.



This area is the silver mining Mecca of the world, and Wallace is at the center of it, and of the universe according to a sign downtown. Personally, I think that is self declared, because I am not sure how you would figure out that you were the center of the universe.



But we also learnEd that silver miners are bad-asses. Back in the late 1880s and 1890s there were mine wars here as miners organized for better pay and working conditions. When things weren’t moving fast enough, they blew up a couple of mines, and even blew up the Idaho governor. So, there you have that.



The locals are super friendly and will tell you all about whatever they know about the town. We found out from a local, that there were 3 active brothel in Wallace until the last FBI raid in the 1980s.



Not much else to report from today ... and we are conserving battery power ... so until tomorrow when we are reunited with our chargers ..have a great night.

And really, I will post some pictures soon.

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