Sunday, May 24, 2009

Day two, in Orofino, ID

Sunday, 5/24/09

Dana here, sitting on the deck at our hotel room right on Clearwater River in Orofino, Idaho, I’m writing my first ever blog. The sun is setting, the water is lapping, I’m drinking a glass of wine and Brian is contemplating his new cigar hobby over a glass of single malt scotch. This is the life!

We took off from Baker City this morning about 11:45 after repacking everything. Literally. We spent so much time planning what to pack but not how to pack it! It was much more logical and consolidated after we were through.

My breakfast plan worked out well – pre-scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese frozen in packets, heated up in the microwave and wrapped in tortillas. I’ve got enough of that to get us to Utah where we can grocery shop and restock.

We stopped in Enterprise for gas and to see if we could get a new seal for the little coffee-espresso pot. It the same kind of seal typically found in a blender – you know, it goes between the beaker and the blade? Brian sorta forgot to put a certain ingredient in. Nothing important, just, you know, the water. So the seal kinda got, you know, melted a little bit. Anyway, Enterprise doesn’t have a place to buy something like that, so we continued north on OR highway 3, also called Rattlesnake Road. When you cross into Washington on that road, it becomes Washington 129. It’s a way cool twisty road.

In the middle, right before crossing into Washington, there is this little café place that serves good food and GREAT shakes and malts. So we had lunch there around 2:30. Continuing north we got a few drops of rain – just enough to make the road a bit slick so we didn’t push too hard. What beautiful country God put us in!

Riding along, enjoying the riding and the scenery, I noticed that Brian was suddenly breaking and I was about to rear-end him. I noticed there was a large turkey standing in my way. I thought it might not be good for me to hit the turkey. I figured Brian thought the same, which was why he was about to get my front tire up his tail-pack. I love anti-lock breaking systems, especially mine and especially on my bike. The turkey remembered it was Memorial Day, not Thanksgiving so he flew away.

We got into Lewiston around 5:00 where there is a WalMart. I got a new coffee seal. “Free”.

From there we followed Clearwater River to Orofino, and got here around 6:00. Really nice place!

SKF (statistical key figures, for those not in the accounting world) starting temperature 72, high of 88, low of 64. Around 245 miles. Really perfect riding weather. All in all, a wonderful day two. Tomorrow is on to Lolo pass, in and out of Montana via the Bitterroot Mountains and staying at Salmon, ID. About 300 miles.

No comments: