Lewiston, ID to Waitsburg, WA

Today was Christmas in July!  The 25th of July, and a secret santa party at night, but we had to get to Waitsburg first.  One of the church members cooked an amazing breakfast for us in Lewiston and made it hard to leave, with huge omelettes, pancakes with blueberry syrup and fresh fruit.  Then we had one of our best Moshers yet from Justin, his first time, and we all acted out our favorite land mammals, a continuation of a conversation from Yellowstone.  We only need to get Conor and Clinton and everyone will have done a Mosher.  I was a squirrel, in case you were wondering.  Other highlights were Clinton's cat, James's wallaby, and Conor's platypus.  Jay, one of the church members rode out with us in the morning, we were all impressed that he could manage to go the first 25 miles and stick with us.  The ride was exceptionally boring for the first 60 miles, but it was cool to get into Washington, its unbelievable to think that we in a state bordering the Pacific, and that we only have one state left until we are done!  The ride was pretty long and we had to climb out of a valley.  We had one long climb 10 miles in for about 12-14 miles but it wasn't too steep until about the last 5-7 miles, and then another at the 60 mile mark that was shorter than expected. Washington is a very dry state so far, and so we saw a lot of browns and sands today, but once we got closer to Waitsburg, it got nicer and we saw some really cool scenery.

Finally, after dinner we got to have Christmas and that was really awesome.  Everyone had great gifts, and it was really fun because almost everyone really put thought into it and had great stuff.  I got some beef jerky and some new keys for my collection from Matt Cady, which I absolutely loved since I've been looking for some cool keys in a few places along the trip, but hadn't been able to find anything yet. Other highlights were Cady getting ear candles(which was interesting to watch later, those things are crazy and gross), Tim's light-up helmet(awesome), and Isaac's sweet noise-making Fantastic Four shoes that actually fit over his riding shoes so he can ride with them on his bike(hilarious).  Tomorrow is a short one, but a hot one, it's supposed to be over 90 degrees again!

States traveled through:18(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA)
Distance today: 80 mi
Total Distance traveled:  3574 mi