Hi Y'all,
Many thanks for all of the comments, e-mails, and voicemails. It's great to roll into a town with all the gadgets of today's world and have messages from loved ones waiting for you. We've just spent a couple of days in Idaho. They don't use cell phones or computers there. But everyone has a four-wheeler in the back of their pickup truck. Now we're in Missoula, Montana, it's way cool. Alright, enough mish mash, I like the daily review style.
Day 12 Tuesday July 1: Kickin' it proper in Joseph 0 miles
Joseph is hot in the morning. And our bodies are starting to adjust to this 'get up with the sun' nonsense, thus our plans to sleep in are thwarted and we have to have a full day of activity. Wait, cool. After spending a few hours creating this rad weblog, we get down to business and head for the bowling alley. Joseph may not be big, but it's got some cool stuff I'll tell you what. The bowling alley is tiny, only 8 lanes, and two of them are broken. We're two for two on above-ground ball returners, which I can't get over, it's so cool! Anyways, they don't seem to oil their lanes, so the brave adventurers were humbled with a few sub-hundred games, which then inspired us to stop bowling and get down to drinking. We took off to visit the beloved Terminal Gravity Brewery in nearby Enterprise, Oregon, but it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's raining, which makes it even cooler that we're taking a rest day and can kick back. As Joseph isn't the biggest of towns, we returned to the bowling alley, which happens to be connected to one of the town's three bars. Ping pong, pool, and beer in the afternoon with Shannon, Johnny, and Wade. The weather clears up and we've had enough bar for an afternoon, so we decide that the best (and safest) thing we can do is go to the lake and play on the rope swing. It's easy, just park on the side of the two-lane road, hop the rail as cars fly by, grab on, jump off of the exposed root of a giant tree, and let go after you've cleared the rocks. Really fun, and it's turned out to be a beautiful day. After that we head up to a waterfall nearby and run into the nice people from Idaho who had saved our lives the day before. From there we head back to the house, play with the doggies, grill 'till we're stuffed full of sausages, and foosball into the night. A much-needed day of rest, and an amazing time in Joseph. Thanks again to Shannon, Wade, and his family for putting us up and showing us a great time.
Day 13 Wednesday July 2: Joseph to the middle of nowhere inside of Joseph Canyon, WA 60.57 miles
Ahh, back on the bikes. It feels a lot better than two days before, the legs aren't so sore and the butt has more or less recovered for now. The dogs run with us for the first 4 miles or so, amazing endurance let me tell ya. After we finally lose them we're on our way, but not before a stop at the aforementioned Terminal Gravity Brewery, which is conveniently located directly on our route out of town. Shannon and Johnny join us for a beer and a small meal and pictures and goodbyes, and now we're on our way for reals. Joseph Canyon is really awesome. Canyons in general are cool, I think. But it was a real treat because we were unaware that it even existed until we came upon it. A short ride from there and we find ourselves careening down a really windy, really steep canyonside. We fly down this monster for seriously 15 minutes, it's way fun. On the way down we cross our first state border, hellooooo Washington! We've been told by people on three separate occasions to stop at the place at the bottom of the descent, so we have to stop. Boggan's Oasis boasts the world's best milkshakes, and I wouldn't say they are wrong. The next leg of our ride is a 10 mile climb with over 100 turns back out of the canyon. It's called "Rattlesnake Ridge." We remember Hell's Canyon well, and we've just devoured giant milkshakes and burgers. I think we'll camp here tonight.
Day 14 Thursday July 3 Rattlesnake Ridge to Pink House Campgrounds, Idaho 81.53 miles
The rest day in Joseph really helped us out. A lot. This became clear when we mobbed up the torturous Rattlesnake Ridge without even a smidgeon of the trouble of Hell's Canyon. I think my thighs have already doubled in size. Maybe it's just my confidence. Anyways, the ride up was fine and we were feeling great, we crossed our second state border in the afternoon, crossing the Snake River into Lewiston, Idaho. Lewiston is awful. I mean, the people were nice there and there were free peanuts and giant ice teas at the restaurant, but it's like 30 degrees hotter in Lewiston than anywhere else in the Northwest (are we still in the Northwest?). It's hot, the bank says 104, but banks are kinda sketchy anyways, you know? We start to hate life on the ride out, we're snappy with each other and tired and the wind isn't cooperating and the cars are flying by. Basically, the heat is really testing our spirits, so we jump into the Snake and it is COLD. Suddenly, everything is okay. We ride for another hour or so and spot up at our first campsite. Campsites are lame, but picnic tables are way more comfortable than most rocks.
Day 15 Friday July 4: Orofino to Lowell, ID 66.55 miles
In my life (this is still Pete typing, by the way), the fourth of July has generally been a very memorable day of the year. Whether rolling with a huge crew of co-opers to the Babbs' farm in Dexter, lighting off firworks in a cul-de-sac in Lincoln, or partying on a 45-story apartment rooftop in Portland and then going to work at 6am the next morning after playing poker all night at Clint's, it's generally a day that stands out in the crowd. On this trip, however, I don't imagine that will be the case. In fact, it's two days later and I'm having a hard time thinking of anything to write about. We rode through some small towns during the day, but by the time we had gone a fair distance we were into the Clearwater National Forest, away from any festivities and small town fun. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time playing chess and hanging out by the Clearwater River, and this really intensly wired, muscle-y dude from Fresno rolled up and paid our camping fee so that he could park in our spot and sleep in his truck. He talked a lot, and really fast. Ultimately, though, I was asleep before the sun had gone completely down, so no fireworks this year.
Day 16 Saturday July 5: Lowell to Missoula, Montana 115.75 miles
Big day today, the plan is to do our first century. According to Adventure Cycling, it's a 70 mile ascent up to Lolo pass. This does not sound like the best day to do a 100-mile bike ride, but after a few pugs on the Independence Day bottle of whiskey we decided to do it, so we're going to do it. The ascent wasn't bad at all, really, it follows the river the whole time, so it's a really gradual climb. And we're all feeling really good, so we're moving at a pretty fast pace. The actual climbing doesn't start until about 4 miles before the summit of the pass, and after Hell's Canyon, all of these climbs are seeming a whole lot easier. Hey Montana, what's up Mountain Time Zone. This is our 4th state in 4 days, rad. Alright, only 45 or so miles to Missoula, no sweat. Right. Actually, it was a cool gradual downhill the entire way, so we flew like the wind on the wings of some really fast bird or something, and we had a place to stay in Missoula, so there was added reason to keep going. We pulled over when we reached 100 miles to have a celebratory Hersey bar and pee. The small joys are really making the trip something special. We rolled into Missoula and found our host with relative ease at her place of employment, the Boca Rey (Mouth King) burrito restaurant. Here we meet up with our friend Laurel from Eugene and her two roommates (who are also co-workers), Oriana and Anna. They are supercool and feed us giant burritos. They close up and we head to their place, which is downtown, close to campus and all the hip stuff to do in Missoula. We get our first real night on the town, drinking and dancing with foosball and pool at a cool bar downtown. Nice folks in Missoula.
That's that for now. Kelvin and Nate have at this point left the University of Montana library in search of a local brewery. We here they have some good ones here, we'll check 'em out and be sure to let you know. It's a tough job, but I think we can handle it. Tomorrow we're hitting the road again, off to Butte, Bozeman, then south to Wyoming and Colorado. Thanks again for all of your messages. You're often in our thoughts.
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