Racing the rain

Leah

Due to the warning about a BIG thunderstorm that was due to hit the Orofino area late this morning, we set our alarm and were on the road by 7am local time. We just zipped straight into Lewiston to have our first coffees of the day. We found a Waffles n’ More that was plenty busy (always a good sign). Food was fast, coffee was mediocre, but it did the trick. The sky was reassuringly clear and the temperature was comfortably warm for most of the morning.

As we left Lewiston, OH we went North on Hwy 95 and had to stop at a very scenic viewpoint. Below us was a small vineyard, I suspect it is one of very few in Idaho.

Again we tried to avoid interstate highways so we veered off at Potlatch to Highway 6 and ended up taking the White Pine Forest Road. Oh what a treat that was! It was twisty and gladed and it smelled wonderful. We took our time meandering through the little forest road, and even had to let a trucker pass us at one point – he was really moving! We passed through the small town of St. Maries and Keith spotted a roadside cappuccino drive through. We parked beside the tiny shack and stood in line with the cars to order our coffees. After we were refuelled, we did the same for our bikes and kept heading north. We noticed that Byway 97 followed Coeur d’Alene Lake so again on a whim took that road just to avoid the interstate. ANOTHER amazing gem of a road! As technical, if not more so than The Beartooth Pass, and wonderfully scenic with the lake on one side of the road and the hill/cliff on the other. The road passed through a small (adorable looking town) of Harrison, I would like to explore the area more on another trip. After doing the slower speeds along the twisty lake road I found the 8 miles of the interstate highway that we had to do at 65mph too fast. We got into Coeur d’Alene and stopped for lunch. I think my hesitation about the higher speeds was just due to my stomach getting low on fuel. During lunch I looked up a few campgrounds that would be on our route north, they looked to be about 30km from Coeur d’Alene so that was were we headed. We got to the park area and the entrance had a sign that the campsites were all full. As we were in the process of turning back to the highway, Keith’s bike radio automatically tuned into the emergency weather alert channel that was forecasting golfball sized hail and wind gusts up to 85 mph. This motivated us to find a hotel room in Sandpoint (the next town) instead. We stopped in the cute, touristy looking town and I started looking for an Airbnb or a hotel. All the prices seemed to be at least $350 per night and/or unavailable. I called a couple of local hotels without any luck, Keith started chatting to some bikers that were parked beside us. It turns out the town was busy due to a music festival that was happening (being in vacation mode we had forgotten that it was Saturday today). Guess there are some pros and cons to being in vacation mode: one pro is that I’m no longer having dreams about spreadsheets, it always takes me a few days to turn off my work-brain. Anyways, one of the bikers suggested a Best Western Plus in Bonners Ferry (again, another town away). I called to snag one of the last rooms available and we scooted down the road to try to beat the storm that we could now see forming to the West. About 30km away from our destination the wind picked up and about 10km away, we started to see lightning strikes. There was not any rain yet and the air was still warm but Keith and I were getting nervous about being caught in the storm. Luckily, we did make it into town in time and checked into our room.

Yesterday, Keith had promised me a relatively quick and easy day but we were on the road for eight hours. Not eight hours in the saddle, but still eight hours of concentration and not relaxation. Today we were on the road for ten hours after all of the extra extended destinations. Now once again for tomorrow, Keith has again promised a quick and easy day as we plan to ride into the Toad Rock Motorcycle Campground just north of Creston, BC. So let’s see if this “plan” works out or not. There have been some advantages to having no plan at all on this trip, but after booking last minute hotel rooms like tonight (not sure we could have prevented this though) we may go back to our old ways of mapping out a route and at least booking a hotel or two ahead of time. This was an experiment though, so we had to test it out to see if this method of travel was for us or not. The roads that we have accidentally found have been a huge bonus that I don’t think we would have stumbled across if we were sticking to a rigid plan.