| spectacularly gorgeous.....there's no other way to describe this day, unless you add a few more superlatives. the sky was clear as we left cambridge & the temps a bit chilly; sari & i brot up the rear at about 6:20. |
| the first 16 miles were mostly up, but not real steep. it warmed us right up. we got to the top of the hill & started coasting down. i was glad to see that the downhill wasn't very steep either. |
| at about mile 23 we came upon the nice little restaurant debby had told us about. yesterday she'd run into a couple of bikers who'd eaten wonderful rhubarb pie at that restaurant. when we got there we found out that debby & anne had just eaten the last 2 pieces of rhubarb pie....of any pie. what a blow! we had no inkling that she'd turn on us like that. |
| sari had a couple of pancakes & i ordered a combination omelet, which came with "brownlee spuds." brownlee is a big name in these parts. both the omelet & the spuds had onions & peppers in them; it was all pretty tasty. |
| we rode on down the hill & soon found ourselves riding on narrow roads way up above the brownlee reservoir. (i was so glad we were on the side of the road toward the hill.) |
| here's a picture of (from left) gerrie, jackie (notice that duck on her bike bag), & sarah. the reservoir & the walls of the snake river canyon are behind them. | |
| we kept coasting down a gradual downhill along the canyon walls to the brownlee dam. we passed alongside it, then kept coasting downhill. |
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here's a photo sarah took looking back toward the dam. yikes it was huge. in the photo (from left) are jackie, me, gerrie, & sari. |
| at the bottom of the valley we crossed a bridge over the snake, then commenced the most beautiful ride you can imagine alongside the base of the giant hills on our left, the lovely snake river on our right. |
| you can see our road at the left of this photo. we saw a few fishermen out on the river in small boats. |  |
| by the way, the weather today was just as perfect as it looks in these photos: bright sunshine, a few clouds once in a while, warm but not baking temps (in midsummer it's over 100 degrees in this canyon), & breezes that were light to nonexistent. & traffic was pretty well nonexistent, too. if we'd written up a recipe for a perfect biking day the ingredient list would've matched this day. |
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after about 10 miles we began climbing up off the canyon floor. this was our last view of hell's canyon. by this time we had climbed up quite a ways on that ribbon of a road that you can see across the river; it curved around to the right & up to the vantage point where i took this picture. the last few days we've seen lots of rushing waters, but the snake was so calm today that it clearly reflected everything above it. |
| we biked back into the hills. soon we came upon a little roadside sign advising us that we're (back) in pacific time. a sign that we never saw, however, was one welcoming us to oregon...our 10th & last state!! sarah thot we'd be in oregon once we crossed the snake river, but there was no official mention of it. a little later i came upon a couple of fellows installing a "do not pass" sign along the road. i stopped & kidded them that i thot maybe they'd be putting up a "welcome to oregon" sign. they laughed & said there was no such sign on the idaho side. but one said that if we rode the other way back toward idaho that we'd see a sign thanking us for spending our money in oregon. |
| the landscape really opened out during the last 15 miles or so into halfway. at one point we rounded a corner & were awestruck by the appearance of snow-capped peaks before us. i took this photo near halfway. i think those are the cascade mountains. |  |
| halfway is a pretty cute little town. a sign at one end of town (but not the one from which we entered) proclaims it half.com...the nation's first dot-com community. perhaps you've heard the story; if not, here's a link to provide you the scoop....& some interesting info about halfway, oregon, in the bargain. |
| when sari & i arrived early afternoon the little cafe across the street from our motel had bikers filling up all the tables out front in the sunshine. i walked over there & got a room key from one of my roommates for tonight (patty fainer & sarah). a little later patty & i did some hand washing & hung it on the barbed wire fence behind our motel; let's hope the cow grazing in that pasture doesn't get tired of grass. |
| Higher quality versions of the pictures from my trip are available here. If you would like copies of the original, full-size photos, or if you would like text-only versions of these daily reports e-mailed to you, feel free to e-mail my son Mark with your request. Stay tuned.... |
