Dodged a Bullit

Day 6: Wood River Campground, near Ketchum, Idaho

Distance traveled: 432.5 km

Cumulative distance: 2307 km

Maximum speed: 130 kph

Moving average: 77 kph

Temperature range: 20.2 – 32.4

We didn’t get up in too big a hurry today but when I did drag myself out, I walked a couple of blocks to get us some decent coffee. Hotel room coffee with plastic cream just isn’t up to snuff when there are coffee shops near by and on this trip, we have seen an extraordinary number. Most of the time they are drive-throughs, which seems to me how the majority of Americans get their coffee; somebody was onto a good idea when they thought of that.

Nan getting the bike ready

Our room looked like a bomb had gone off inside one or both of our panniers because there was stuff everywhere, with the possible exception of hanging from the chandelier. We had gone through all of our stuff the day before deciding what to take to the laundry, which is not such a simple matter. Since everything is in sealed Ziploc bags, everything has to be pulled out and inspected to determine if it contains hazardous material, and then emptied into the laundry bag. As such, it took us about an hour and a half to pack and load up. By the time we checked out, it was 10:20 a.m. before we were actually making tracks.

We were extremely lucky, as it turned out. The sky was hazy and smoky, though we weren’t sure which was more however, there was at times a layer of brown air on the horizon. It didn’t smell of smoke but the sky had a sickly pallor to it. There were few clouds though the sky was not really blue and we thought that if this weather had moved in yesterday, we would have had a different eclipse experience. We would have seen the moon moving across the sun but we may not have seen the corona, which of course, is everything. The sky was this way for a couple of hours, when it finally brightened up and blue reappeared.

Since missing Highway 12 earlier in the trip, sticking to the game plan today would have meant that three quarters of today’s journey would have been a retracement of our earlier path, coming over the Sawtooth Pass. We decided late last night that we would go farther south to Boise, then head up north and connect back onto the Sawtooth Pass at Lowman; this would allow us to travel more virgin territory and see another road designated as “scenic”: the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway, though it would add about 50 kms.

This meant that we would have to either take the Interstate or go right through the middle of Boise. One of the primary objectives of motorcycle travel for us is to avoid Interstate highways because they are nothing more than very fast, busy highways with little to see and boring as all get-out. As it turned out, despite it been smokin’ hot, Boise was an extremely pleasant city to pass through.  It was unfortunate that it was stop-and-go at each block, contending with intersections, lights and school zones but the downtown had many interesting buildings and there is an incredible amount of green space, trees and parks in the city. 

We did manage to stop and have our first break of the day at a juice bar. We were talking about stopping and Nan spotted the place from the road and we ended up turning around to get there. It seemed like a good alternative to the usual: carbs, processed meat and sugar but what I didn’t expect was that there was nothing really to “eat”. Nothing like a sandwich to go with our juices because everything was wheat fee, gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, ice free(!), preservative free, caffeine free, nitrate free and Free Willy. I ordered a “small Original” and got a bowl of air. Actually, it was frozen fruit and vegetables turned into baby food. The truth is that I actually liked it but it didn’t make a meal for me. What it did do, however, was re-hydrate me somewhat.

To get back on the road, what I really needed was a coffee, though Nan wasn’t interested and neither of us wanted to sit around a coffee shop. I thought it would just be a simple matter for us to go to a drive-through coffee shop, I would order a double espresso with a bit of cream iced and just drink it at the window, give back the cup and go! Simple enough. We saw a “Human Bean” coffee drive-through, so we swung in. This was great, one car ahead and none behind! There was actually a gal standing out there with an iPad taking orders. I thought, wow, that’s proactive, especially as they are not even busy. I order the coffee by the wrong name and Nan corrects me. What I had inadvertently ordered was the iced coffee version of a “Big Gulp” or something. It’s like a 48 oz iced coffee, which would make it about the size of my gas tank, and quite impractical to hold while riding. And had about a cup of some kind of goo squeezed onto the top.  So I rather than using some fancy coffee name, I just said “iced double espresso with some cream”. I had had the foresight to have my money ready before we got on the bike the prior time plus, Nan and I swapped helmets because hers is split and flips up to drink coffee easily. I get to the window and my coffee, which is in a small glass with a straw, is waiting for me. I hand over my five dollar bill, give her a tip and drop my change on the ground. Now, there are about six cars in line behind us, I can’t bend over to get my change without putting the kickstand down and I need to drink this coffee so I don’t have to deal with the glass afterwards. Well, it didn’t all work and I ended up pulling ahead, drinking the coffee and throwing the ice on the pavement. Nan took the cup and stashed it somewhere, though I don’t know where and I don’t recall her tossing it.

The Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway was our big payoff for getting burned out of Lolo. If we had gone over on Highway 12 to Ontario for the eclipse, we would have done the Sawtooth Pass as originally planned, one direction, going east. With looking for some new territory, we got to experience the best riding of the trip so far. The Ponderosa is as squiggly as anything we have been riding recently, with tight turns, switchbacks and occasionally, stunning views over sprawling valleys. It was by far the best riding of the trip.

We had two campgrounds targeted around Ketchum and our plan was to look at them both before deciding, since they are only about 4 km apart. The first has paved roads including right into the tent spot, not too congested, lots of space between tent pads and very well treed. The second had gravel roads, no water which we learned later was because a flood had gone through in the spring and damaged the wells but it had a tent spot almost right beside the river. Nonetheless, it’s pretty hard to camp without water so we went back to the first campground. As it turns out, we found a very private tent spot right beside the river, but there is no potable water here, either. We decide to make do; we can treat river water and I head into Ketchum to buy something for dinner. We end up with marinated flank steak, grilled asparagus, kale salad, pasta salad, a small lemon pie about the size of a hockey puck and a split of red wine.