|
Alarm goes off at 7:30am. It is not raining! At 9am. the bike is
fixed and clothes are in the drier. We have breakfast at Brandin Iron
Steakhouse, the dining side of the Ace Saloon. Tomi is hungry and
orders two meals: pancakes, and biscuit and gravy. He does not finish
everything, though. Middle-aged sporty-looking couples at the next
table leave most of the food (mainly carbs) untouched, but the ladies
are super careful in taking all the coffee creamers with them when leaving.
The picture below is from Council downtown; the one at left pictures a vehicle we are planning to ride our next trip on. |
|
We see some sun during our ride to Cambridge (elev. 3840'). We have strawberry
smoothie and mocha in a drive-through Espresso cafe there. This region of
the country, Idaho and Oregon, as we soon find out, has small drive
through coffee shops everywhere. How nice!
Little after 2pm. we start uphill to Brownlee Summit (elev. 4131'). We meet a guy who started in Halfway and is planning to go to Council, practically riding all the way uphill to a strong headwind. We are glad we have the rest of the day downhill once we reach the Summit, which we do at 4:45pm. Riding time so far is 4:03 and the distance 60.9km. |
|
|
While we are descending to Brownlee Dam (elev. 2050') the sun comes out, and it gets pretty hot. It is also beautiful out there with the blue sky, turquoise lake and the rocky hills (see the pictures below). We follow Snake River to Oxbow Dam (elev. 1750'). We enter the Pacific Time zone just before passing the Seven Devils Mountain range. We have really steep climb over the mountains and begin the last 17 miles to Halfway, Oregon, the world's first dot com city. The road follows the Pine Creek upstream. The last 9 miles we ride in dark. At 9pm. we are in Halfway (elev. 2654') and find a room at Halfway Motel and RV Park for $46. |
|
|
| We take a quick shower and out we are for some food! We drop by at
Stockmen's Bar. Even if it is late and the grill has been turned off,
we are promised some pub grub. We have an order of Buffalo wings for
$7.50. We down those and three rounds of McTarnahans amber ale in no
time.
"This was a great day!", Tomi says when about to fall asleep. Today we rode 128.2km in 9:20. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The picture above at left is from the Brownlee Dam, and the one at right is from the Oxbow Dam. |