A beautiful sunset at Indian Springs trail area southeast of Twin Falls.
This is what happens when you live in an RV and you ride in some wet weather, then you need the clothes again for another ride. The stove is a multipurpose miracle, it heats up the RV, drys out our cycling shoes, shirts, shorts, pants, and mom is cooking our dinner!
Dad and I went for a long trail run at Indian Springs, mom biked along and took pictures. It had been raining with thunderstorms scattered across the sky, and now it finally cleared up!
Southern Idaho's bean, potato and hay fields are behind me as I run down the trail back to the RV.
The weather stayed excellent for Dad and me when we went on an 80 mile road bike ride last Sunday. Even though I enjoy mountain biking more, road biking is still useful for training and I also will be doing some road triathlons this year mixed in with my off-road triathlons. I use a "triathlon bike" which is a different version of a road bike built purely for triathlons. Both triathlon and road bikes are light with thinner tires and wheels so you can cover many more miles faster and easier. But a triathlon bike can be faster because of the steeper positioning of the body on the bike for aerodynamics (as shown in picture above). Triathlon bikes can easily reach 25 to 30 mph on a flat road. This ride was for endurance with some harder effort intervals thrown in for good measure. I probably won't be racing any races that long anytime soon, but without endurance, speed doesn't do any good because I wouldn't be able to go fast for very far. We were very lucky to find a nice 20 mile bike path between Bellevue and Ketchum in Idaho. The area is very pretty, just north of Sun Valley where lots of celebrities and pro athletes own vacation homes. 
After our bike ride we drove on. This is the top of Galena Pass at just over 8000 feet.
Crossing Galena Pass and going down the other side of the mountain we saw the famous Sawtooth mountains mentioned a lot of times in Louis L'amour's books.
Now we crossed the state border into Montana. I'm swimming in the Bitterroot Aquatic Center pool in Hamilton, Montana. This is only the second time that I have swam in an outdoor pool since Maui. Most other outdoor pools are closed, but the locals say that summer is supposed to start next week. 
I'm swimming with a pull buoy between my legs and paddles on my hands, which helps to build shoulder strength without kicking. In my races its not really necessary to kick while in the swim leg of the race because its a good idea to save my legs for the bike and run.
Yesterday we went riding in the Rattlesnake trail area in Missoula, Montana. They have very nice and smooth singletrack and beautiful meadows. Some really steep and long climbs too!
Montana is a nice place, as far as the places I've seen. Lots of hills, but not quite so high, with green forests and pastures all over.
After over a month of being in the hot desert which is awesome because it is very different from Alaska, I must admit it is nice to get back into the forests and mountains just for a change! My next race is in 8 days in Farragut State Park in northern Idaho, its an XTERRA off-road race and I'm super excited to get to race on my mountain bike again since XTERRA Las Vegas.
Behind me if you look close enough, you can see the trail climbing up along the mountain.
On a 60 mile road bike ride we got to see a historic site! This is the Golden Spike Historic Site in Promontory, Utah. In 1869 on May 10, a golden spike was driven into the railroad and completed the first transcontinental railroad that was built by Union Pacific from the east and Central Pacific from the west. This was the first direct transportation route from the east coast to the Pacific ocean and China trade.
Still on our bike ride we stopped by a rocket display at the ATK Aerospace Facility.
This particularly massive rocket behind me is a Reusable Solid Rocket Motor which is used to carry the space shuttle into space. It is 149 feet long, 12 feet in diameter, and weighs 1,255,978 lbs. When attached to the space shuttle, this rocket burns for only 122 seconds and has 2.6 million pounds of thrust, enough punch to zoom at 3,094 mph. When the burn time ends, at 24 nautical miles above the earth the rocket separates from the shuttle and falls back a bit then parachutes into the Atlantic Ocean. Then boats find it broken up into segments and take the segments back to the mainland U.S. where it is reassembled for reuse. 
When we're not riding and looking at old trains and rockets, this is where we are! (At least some of the time.)
This is the Crystal Spring, a mineral water hot spring. A great reward for a cold swim in a funky 20 foot long outdoor pool filled with 64 degree water. And by the way, in northern Utah there's still snow on the mountains behind us.
The windmill at the head of the windmill trail that is part of the trail network of Gooseberry Mesa.
The cool thing about the windmill trail is that it edges alongside the cliff edge of the mesa so you get a vast view of everything below.
Me on my way to set up my gear in the transition area. The day was sunny and beautiful, perfect racing conditions!
The swim course was two laps of a 1/2 mile loop with people starting in waves 10 minutes apart. I was in the 2nd wave, after the male and female elites.
The 33k or 20.5 mile bike course wasn't too easy, there was a big hill climb 3 miles into the bike.
The aid stations and the famous volunteers who help to make the race happen!
On the run I didn't feel my strongest, but it still felt smooth. Could be my fastest 10k in a triathlon so far though!
In the transition area behind me, there are at least 800 or even a thousand bikes.
