June 7 – 14

After are rest day in Baker City Bobby and I continued to Oxbow, Oregon which was about a 70 mile ride.  Oxbow is right on the border of Oregon and Idaho and we found a really nice campground to stay for the night.  We set up camp, talked to some of the other campers about our ride, and then planned out the rest of our week.  We increased our miles per day to about 60 – 70 in hopes of reaching Montana within one week.  The next morning, Tuesday, we were happy to see some sunshine as we set out for the day.   We rolled into Idaho about twelve miles into our ride, and we were pretty excited about riding across our first state.  We spent the day peddling along Snake River through Hells Canyon which was absolutely beautiful and truly a site to see.  They call it Hells Canyon because it is the deepest canyon in North America.  We arrived in Council about 65 miles later and set up camp at a local RV park.  Not much happened in Council except a little wheeling and dealing with the local RV park owner, which ended up saving us $4.  We got some hardy meals and learned about the local hybrid wolves that we did not want to run into because they weigh about 5-6 hundred lbs.  The next day we were faced with more rain but we were about 65 miles from our next town so we packed up and started our day.  The ride to Riggins was fairly easy besides the wet conditions.  When we got there the entire town was out of power as a result of the storms Bobby and I had been riding through all day.  We immediately started looking for a place to stay for the night but we were turned away because the road that you take to get to the local campgrounds was closed for construction.  We rolled around town asking people if there was anywhere we could set up camp but came up empty handed.  After searching for a place to stay for about an hour it started raining on us so we decided to just to go to the cheapest hotel we could find and sleep there.  The next day we had a 2500 foot, 10 mile long pass to conquer called White Bird Pass.  It started out fairly well, but about 7 miles up the weather took a turn for the worse and the skies turned black all around us.  Suddenly we were faced with a larger challenge, how to survive this pass DURING the storm.  It was raining down on us hard, and the temperature was quickly decreasing as the winds increased.  We were getting worn out quickly when all of a sudden we spotted a port-o-potty.  As quickly as we could we rode up to it and hopped in.  It was a life saver to say the least.  We stayed in there for about 30 minutes while it continued to downpour.  Eventually, we realized that it wasn’t going to stop raining anytime soon so we decided to keep moving.  We hopped on our bikes, and continued up the pass in the rain.  Three miles later we were at the top and cruising down the other side into Grangeville, Id.  The first thing we did was stop at the laundry mat and dry all of our clothes and shoes and then directly after that we went to Subway where we ate soup and subs.  The next day we continued on to our next destination about 60+ miles to a small town called Lowell, where we camped at a sight right where the Selway and Lochsa rivers join to form the Clearwater River.  There were some bikers there and they kept me up for a while getting rowdy, however eventually they cooled it down enough for us to get some sleep.  The following day was a long one, we had to do 70+ miles uphill.  We finally made it into Powell around 5:30 and ate dinner at the Lochsa Lodge, which was delicious.  We then set up camp and ended up going to sleep not to much later.  The next morning when we woke up we had breakfast at the Lochsa Lodge again, and as we were getting ready to leave we started talking to a woman named Meredith.  She told us how she did some touring before and if we were going into Missoula later on that night then her boyfriend Joe and her would be more than happy to save us money by letting us sleep in their backyard. We gladly excepted the invitation.  On our way to Missoula we stopped by Lolo Hot Springs where we relaxed in the pool and natural hot springs for about 2 hours, and then continued on to Missoula.  We finally made it to town at about 7pm that night and where welcomed by Joe and Meredith.  After setting up tents, we took showers and then headed into downtown where we had a few drinks at Charlie B’s.  Meredith bar tends there and we actually ran into a few other bikers that we have been seeing on and off during our trip.  Today we woke up and took a rest day to get a few things finished with our bicycles and try to stay off of our butts an extra day. Joe took us on a tour of Big Sky Brewery where he works and we got to see how they make their beer.  Bobby also needed a new tent so we asked Joe for directions to a sports store, but Joe is the man and instead of giving us directions he gave Bobby a brand new tent.  For free! Tomorrow we will start moving south towards Wyoming and will be in Yellowstone in 6 days.

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