Day 40: Heading in a northerly direction.

Athol, Idaho

Distance for the day: 393.7 km

Cumulative distance: 9,107.5 km

Top speed: 130 kph

Moving average: 78 kph

Temperature:  14.0 - 30.2 

We were awake early. Really early: 4:30 am to the sound of birds singing their hearts out. Isn't spring past? They should be raising families by now. I will say that they sound happy, even though they should be sleepting. We talked about getting up then and getting going.

The next sound we heard was rain falling on the tent. Not nearly as cheerful as the birds singing. But it fell. The NEXT sound we heard was snoring. BOTH of us! We were convinced that when we were awake, we were awake for good but asleep we were until just after 7:00 am. We did get up then but everything was wet: the tent, the fly, certainly the ground sheet, we even had moisture inside the tent. Camping is hard enough without the rain; I have long since lost the desire to beat nature. I just want it to be easy. I feel I can confidentely say the same for Nan.

So, it takes a little longer to get organized when everything is wet. But we did get packed and we were on the road by 8:45. For the first time in several weeks, we start out wearing pants (as opposed to shorts) andour heated jackets, but without the heat. Even though the weather looks to be threatening somewhat, it is actually warmer than we expected at 14. By the time we were pulling away from the campground, we had already seen 10 motorcycles ride by. They must not have been camping. 

The last 40 km of the park was really lovely and oddly enough, I had a slightly different perspective on the landscape today than I did yesterday. We had been camping and riding by the Lochsa River which carves a beautiful figure in the valley. But once again, we were riding without a destination. That was in part because there was no cell service last night so we could not do any route planning. Nonetheless, we rode until we could get a nice coffee and some internet (to update the blog) and to find a destination. We are starting to look at the route home a little more carefully, so looking at one potential route home, we targeted an interim destination of St. Maries, Idaho and we would decide our final destination when we got there. 

We spent most of the morning riding alongside rivers and abandoned rail lines. Both made for interesting viewing. The railway was clearly long-since used since it was well overgrown with weeds, shrubs and bushes. However, we came along a section that had much rolling stock, mostly flatbed cars, the kind I presume are used for transporting c-cans as well as a smaller number of cars used for hauling logs to be processed into lumber. It was amazing how many rail cars were parked on this abandoned line, perhaps thousands as they went on for ten or twelve kilometres. Hard to understand how they can park that much rolling stock and abandon it because the rail line didn't look in good enough shape to retrieve the cars.

Orofino. Many of the place names in the
 last two days have Italian origins.

We did, in time, turn off Hwy 12, crossed the Clearwater River and into the hills on a

Abandoned rolling stock south of Kendrick.

shortcut to Hwy 3, which would take us north. This little shortcut took us over McGary Grade Rd, which took us over the hills to Kendrick but in the process, down a 9% grade. Not Bella Coola steep but steep and twisty enough that I kept the bike geared down and my hand on the brake.

The hills above Kendrick.

Kendrick is a typical small, old US town with buildings usually made of brick, from the late 1800s and early 1900s still in use. Tons of character, occasionally intact but hanging on by the fingernails. There is usually a brew pub or micro brewery in every small town in one of these buildings.

Looks more like Amityville than Kendrick.

St Maries was a bigger version of this and when we rolled in around 2:00 pm our first order of business was to find some place to eat, since all we had had at that point was a latte, protein bar and cinnamon bun. We had pulled over to the side of the road to look at the signs on the main street and Nan, in something of a hurry, asked a passerby where to go get food and the helpful person first welcomed us to St Maries then gave us about ten suggestions. I mistakenly assumed by the number and location of her piercings that she wouldn't have much to offer but I was wrong. 

We ended up having a pretty good lunch and spent a fair amount of time finding a destination for the night and after several failed attempts to find a suitable place, settled on Athol, just north of Coeur d'Alene, another 114 km from St Maries.

The rain once again threatened us this afternoon. However, rather than wait until we were wet, we donned our raingear. This proved to be an outstanding decision because despite very heavy, dark clouds in the direction we were heading, we kept the rain at bay.  We even kept our rain gear handy through lunch and afterwards, every place we rode appeared to have just been deluged with rain but hardly a drop on us.

When we got to Athol, we were told by two separate people that they had had bad storms today. The owne of our motel told us the power had been out twice today due to the storms.

An amusement park that Nan is begging me to take her,
just outside of where we are staying tonight.