July 17, 2021
Day 66 - Kooskia, ID to White Bird, ID
I'm gonna need to see some ID
After an eventful evening, we woke up at 6 again and started to get ready. We didn't leave until 830. We saw the tandem couple ride off around 8 in their jeep. They left the RV and are going to bike 50 miles back to it, sleep there tonight, and drive the RV 100 miles west and ride to get the jeep the next day. It's complicated, but seems to work for them. The next town over, stiles, had another Tim care package that we picked up. This time it had two whoopie pies, as opposed to last time which was a much bigger box filled with all sorts of items and food. After stiles, the climbing begins. We climbed about 2000' in 8 miles. It was the steepest hill since Missouri and I barely made it up. I was at my limit for quite a while and it seems that everyone was struggling.
I felt like we had stayed up last night partying because my body felt bad and I had low energy. At the plateau before grangeville the land turned to wheat farms for another 6 miles into town.
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The road was windy and rolling. The smoke was still thick enough to obscure the mountains in the background. Grangeville was big enough to have a grocery store and we knew it would be the only one for the day so, after eating at a taco John's (really bad food, don't go) we went back to the grocery. Apparently, on the way to meet us, mark and Anton ran into the crazy lady from last night. She didn't recognize them and asked about the trip. They knew her white Nissan murano and she was from Chicago. I wonder what she was on last night because she seemed normal today. They made sure to not tell her where they were going tonight. Mary and I stopped for a coffee at a drive through and we continued up the mountain. Shortly after starting, we ran into the tandem couple and talked about the ride for a few minutes. On the way up, there was a nice tail wind and the grade was alot less steep than earlier today. We probly made it to the top in an hour and overlooked the huge valley with the salmon river at the bottom.
There were about 13 miles of switch backs to do and all down hill. It actually took a while to get down and I was at the point where 20mph felt slow. We were on old hwy 95 and only 1 car passed us on the way down.
At the bottom we arrived in the town of white bird. It was already hot, alot hotter than on the pass, and it was around 4 pm. We called around for a place to stay and settled on an RV park for $12 a person. We rode to the park and talked with the owners for a few minutes. They told us where to access the river and we found a nice beach to swim at. We went back for a shower and made dinner in the yard. I think we went to bed around 830 and even though it was a Saturday, the park was pretty quiet. It had been hot today - forcasted at 97 - but it seemed to cool off quickly.
Mileage:47
Altitude gain:3800
Today's ride: 47 miles (76 km)
Total: 3,415 miles (5,496 km)
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