I awoke in the Kamiah park to sounds of construction equipment moving around on the other side of the fence. I ventured out of my tent to the same empty park, plugged my phone into an outlet in the pavilion, and packed up.
I had a choice of routes today, I could climb up a 2000ft hill and go the "ACA recommended" route, or continue to follow the river which was flat but the map warned "the Idaho dept of transportation, local cyclists, and the ACA do not recommend this route due to no shoulders, heavy truck traffic, and parts of the road are lined with concrete barriers."
Yup, I took the river route! How bad could it be? It turned out it wasn't that bad, some sections didn't have more than 6" of shoulder (rode that before) and there was some truck traffic but most were cool and moved over as they went by. There were concrete barriers lining my side of the road for several mile-long stretches, but they all had about 3ft of shoulder between the white line and the barrier so I just rode there and it wasn't that big of a deal.
I stopped at a rest area along the road about half way and ate a power bar. From behind me rode in Johannes & Rebecca, two Scottish cyclists that I met one of the nights in Missoula at the "cyclist frat house." They had tried to go the recommended route but got lost and climbed a big hill only to meet a dead end. They said the hell with it and went back down and followed the river route. We talked about possibly riding together but they had already made plans to stay with someone they met previously on the road in Lewiston, so I gave them my contact info and rode on, hoping to make it to a camping area about 8 miles past Clarkston.
I eventually made my way into Lewiston (Lewiston, ID & Clarkston, WA are right next to each other, just on different sides of the river) and went looking for some dinner. Using yelp I spotted a Thai restaurant and off I went. I ordered something close to Massaman curry and got a giant portion of curry and rice. I was lucky to eat half and took the rest for maybe tomorrow's breakfast.
The wind had picked up a bit and it was a little slow going along the bicycle path in Lewiston and across the bridge into Clarkston, but I made it to Washington! The last 8 miles seemed to drag on, probably due to the wind and it being late, but I trudged along.
When I got to the camping area it turned out to be a state park. I rode down to the little entrance office and looked at how to get a campsite and got sticker shock, $30 for a campsite!? I was only going to be there for less than 10 hours, that did not seem worth it. I rode over to the bathrooms and filled up my water bottles and went back out of the park.
On the way there I had been entertaining myself by looking for places to stealth camp along the road in case the park was full, so I backtracked about 100 yards to an area that sat below and outside a large right turn in the road. I went down to check it out and found an area behind some trees that seemed like a perfect spot.
As I set up I heard something rustling in the bushes directly behind me but didn't figure much of it, probably a small animal. I set up my tent without the rain fly and set my panniers up alongside it. I fell asleep pretty quickly but was awaken about 4-5 times that night as that animal in the bush turned out to be either a skunk or badger or something about that size, and it kept trying to get into the pannier with all my food. All it took was a quick yell on my part to send it bolting off, but eventually it would come back and this cycle repeated itself until about 5am. Oh well, I call it a tie, didn't have to pay $30 but didn't get the best sleep. Oh well!
Start:
Kamiah,
ID
End:
8 miles past Clarkston, WA
Distance: 82.79 miles
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