Reese woke up before I did and was already packed by the time I finally got out of my tent. We'd be heading in the same direction for the next 90 miles and were planning on riding together, so while I packed up he went into the restaurant and got coffee & breakfast. I ate a PB&J bagel from food I had and got packing.
We both got done at about the same time and were ready to ride. Today was a long day going slightly downhill, loosing about 2000ft over 90 miles. We continued on route 12, which was a very winding road, constantly going left and right following the river. But the views were so awesome, steep mountains covered in pine trees on both sides with a wide river (sometimes with rapids) in the middle. I didn't think Idaho would be this scenic!
We trucked at a good pace until about 45 miles in we stopped at a historic ranger station and had lunch with the food we had. The water was turned off due to contamination but the caretakers of the place were cool and let us fill our water bottles from their cooler. We hung out for a bit afterwards digesting and checked the place out.
Back on the road, we hammered out another 45 miles in good time, surrounded by the same great scenery. When we crossed into the Nez Perce indian reservation and arrived at Kooskia, it was time to split, Reese was heading south to continue the TransAm and I went north. I wished him a good ride and told him I'd text him when I got to the coast.
A short 8 mile solo ride and I was in Kamiah where I would be spending the night, free camping at the park. I needed dinner first so I went down the main strip, the town's casino seemed to be the main attraction, and settled on a pizza place. While waiting for my food an older guy struck up a conversation with me about my trip, like a lot of people have done, and then went back to his table to eat. I didn't think too much of it, but when I finished eating he came by again and sat down and dove into some crazy conspiracy theories on how 9/11 was planned by the same people who ordered JFK assassinated and it had something to do with the Doolittle raid on Japan and on and on. I was nice and listened and his conspiracy just went deeper and deeper.
Eventually I noticed that it was getting dark and excused myself. I need to remember that its going to get darker sooner as I just crossed another time zone. I rode back to the now dark park and was met with a sign that warned the park's sprinklers automatically turned on from 3am to 6am, so I went hunting for an area with yellow grass. I found a suitable location and tossed my tent down and jumped in. There was some sort of industrial company behind the park that looked like it ran all shifts as I saw a forklift go zooming past, but the noise wasn't going to bother me after such a long day's ride.
Start:
Powell, ID
End:
Kamiah,
ID
Distance:
101.33 miles
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