IDAHO

DAY 2 continued - May 13, 2001
321 miles
Total miles: 492

I crossed into Lewiston, Idaho from Clarkston, WA about 4:30 pm and decided I had time for another hour or so. I stopped at a Texaco in Lewiston and chatted up some locals. Grangeville seemed like a good destination (though the young guy I talked to outside the station claimed it was "alright if you like rednecks"). The locals inside were more positive, and they suggested a shorter and more scenic route which began with more of the same rolling hills of grain and then climbed into mountainous terrain - cooler and more trees.

I finally reached Grangeville about 6 pm and was very ready to quit for the day. I'd installed a "cruise control" (actually a device that holds the throttle in a fixed position, which still requires constant tweaking) which eased the toil on my right hand considerably but it still hurt plenty. As did my butt of course. And legs. And head. I checked into the Downtowner Motel in Grangeville, grabbed a bite at a local Mexican restaurant and proceeded to update the website. Unfortunately the laptop was crashing like a mofo and it took me two hours to get it working properly, but all is well now. Though I didn't get to bed until 12:30.

[Downtown Grangeville.]
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[The Downtowner in Grangeville.]
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[Two days' toll of bugs on the headlight.]
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DAY 3 - May 14, 2001
279 miles
Total miles: 771

Up at 7:45 today. I was trying to get on the road as early as possible but I ended up talking to the manager of the Downtowner for about half an hour. Louise Hawker has lived in Grangeville for the past six years, and on and off for over twenty. Her son-in-law is a logger and we started talking about the pros and cons of the logging industry. She said the environmental groups want to shut the whole industry down and have the affected communities turn their economies to tourism, but they don't realize all the changes that have been made in recent years. Selective logging is practiced much more widely than ever before and it makes a significant difference in the prevention of fires, particularly in the recent dry years. Plus it would take a massive effort to retrain workers and promote advertising for those communities that haven't been tourism-oriented in the past.

Louise's grandson Dylan was also in attendance. He didn't seem to be having a particularly happy day, but he managed to hold still long enough for a picture.

[Louise Hawker and Dylan.]

Breakfast at Barb's Crossroads Restaurant. This was far better than the Martha Inn's - eggs, hashbrowns, toast - just good eatin'.

[The lovely Crossroads - but great food.]

[And atmosphere!]

On the road finally about 9:40. Today was cold and threatened rain - a good day for the warm suit and my new insulated goretex gloves. What's really groovy about these gloves is each index finger has a rubber strip on it which I finally figured out was a squeegee for wiping rain off my face shield - cool! Unfortunately I needed it today - but the rain was sporadic and the road never got seriously wet.

The road wound up and through a pass, then descended and joined the Salmon river - a spectacular gorge filled with great rock formations and surrounded by alternating forest and rolling green hillsides. It peaked out around 5400 feet and at this point I was glad for the suit. Head to toe I felt great, with the exception of my face, which was pretty cool but still tolerable. The Salmon is intensely popular for fishing and whitewater activities. As I headed out of Grangeville I saw several hundred fishermen strung out for miles along the riverbanks. Hmmm - this is Monday. Doesn't anybody work?

[Looking back along the road towards Grangeville.]

[And ahead to the south.]

The high country here is beautiful but seems desolate in the gray overcast. The wind was gusty all day - wind is much scarier than rain on a motorcycle - but I did take advantage of a wind-free, straight stretch of road to nudge the bike up to 110. Just had to see how it handled - rock solid - and then back to saner speeds. Overall the bike is handling much better today than the last couple of days. I have no idea why - I didn't change a thing. Maybe it's just me.

[Stopped for 45 minutes for a controlled rockslide. Keeping the roads of America safe - yeah!]

[Taking advantage of the above delay. Pretty nice.]

After a quick lunch at New Meadows (where I met a couple from Spokane who told me the weather was much wetter farther north) I passed Brundage Mountain ski area and the land was more forested. I was riding along the course of the Payette river, a road marked with telltale green dots on the map, indicating an exceptionally scenic route. The only drawback was the rain and gray skies, without which I think I would have been compelled to move here. This will definitely be a route to ride again.

I stopped in Banks to get a frappuccino and met a fisherman up from Boise for the day. He warned me of cops hiding out with radar in Horseshoe Bend, a few miles ahead. He also cautioned about the blind corners on this route. Apparently a lot of people like to pass on blind corners. I was very careful from that point on.

[Roughly the Banks area, getting closer to Boise.]

[Somewhere in the same region, but I didn't get the name of the town.]

I skipped past Boise and got on I-84 heading towards Twin Falls. The speed limit here is 75, which means 85 is perfectly comfortable. The territory changes significantly here too - back to the desert/steppe I experienced along the Columbia in Washington. I planned to continue on to Mountain Home, which sounded like a nice place, but when I got there some locals suggested Glenn's Ferry. Only about 30 miles further along, Glenn's Ferry has a few hundred residents as opposed to Mountain Home's thousands, and doesn't have an Air Force base. It also has the delightful Carmela Vinyard, with its own restaurant. At last a chance to eat something besides road food! Sturgeon and merlot, cheesecake for dessert - perfect.

I also met Brenda Jo Whitehead, 21, who waited on me there. A native of Glenn's Ferry, she's in school at Boise State and studying orthodontics. And she's discovering how wonderful, huge and impossible to figure out the world is. How do we know we're making the right decisions? Why this career, or that one? Where to live? When to travel, and where? The answer - there isn't one. The only answer I can think of is to try whatever comes to you and see what happens. Move to the city. Go on a road trip. Whatever. You'll either love it or learn something.

[Carmela's, at the Carmela vineyards.]

[Brenda Jo. Killer service. Fix your teeth too. Go Brenda!]

[The Redford Motel, Glenn's Ferry, ID.]

DAY 4 - May 15, 2001
320 miles
Total miles: 1091

Another gray day, but somehow I new it would get warmer. After breakfast at a cafe in Glenn's Ferry (with PERFECTLY crispy bacon - now that's a work of art) I got back on I-84 headed east. The surrounding landscape was more of the desolate rangeland I'd been riding through the day before. Gray and rainy. But at 85-90 mph it flew by pretty quickly. I bought I stick-on thermometer at a gas station and the temperature outside read 58 degrees.

One of the most penetrating smells - besides skunks, of which I smelled a few - is that of dairy farms. A couple of horses smell pretty good but hundreds of cows put out an evil stink. Also cattle trucks. Plus, the trucks are dangerous - in the northwest they aren't required to carry effluent tanks, which means when the cows go, you'd better keep an eye out for unexpected slicks on the road.

On a motorcycle you smell everything. But most of the time the smells are pretty nice. Fresh cut grass, spring flowers, fresh cut wood - especially in the morning when the evaporating dew pulls the smells into the air.

The road itself puts off its own set of smells, especially when it's just starting to rain. And it smells different in different places. Usually in Seattle it gets what I would describe as a tolerable hydrocarbon smell. But in mountainous north-central Idaho it takes on a root beer quality. East of Boise it's more of a mesquite character - smoky and salty.

I didn't notice the sign, but 160 miles after I started I crossed over into Utah...