Up the Clearwater River, ID, on Our Anniversary

9/1/2006: Day 13, 51.2 miles; Total 486.3 Miles

Today is Millie and my 43rd wedding anniversary. I've been able to speak with her by phone inspite of the deep canyons and to let her know what she's been missing. She's off today to take our friend Virginia to look at new furniture--her anniversary present. Later tonight she goes out to dinner with our friend Karen while her husband practices for the World Poker Tour. I'm glad she has all her friends and tennis groups, but she should be out here pedaling like she was with me when we hiked the Appalachian Trail. If she were here I'd be in Montana by now. She's been a great wife for 43 years and I hope for another 43.

I was up at 6:30, had one donut and cup of coffee at the motel office after waking the night crew, and was out the door pedaling before the TB could get all the stuff out of the van and make me a “proper” breakfast. He wasn’t happy about it either, acting very grandmotherly! It was 56 degrees, but I didn’t feel cold this morning and felt ready for a good day. The first few miles were through Lewiston, Idaho, and then immediately into the Nez Perce Reservation and past their casino on US Route 12 that will take us clear across Idaho. The casino had gas for 15 cents a gallon less than in town, so I phoned the TB and informed him. He is just like my wife in that he would drive a hundred miles to save a nickel on gas, so he was very pleased.

We followed the Clearwater River the whole day. The Clearwater joins the Snake in Lewiston. Some 45 miles up the Clearwater is the spot where Lewis and Clark came off the plains and first found water flowing westward. They had to go 16 more miles down the river to what is now Orofino to find trees large enough to make five canoes for the trip down the Clearwater, Snake, and then Columbia to the Pacific. My trail, Historic Route 12 follows the riverbank upstream closely and is very flat with few small climbs here and there; however, the TB assures me we are going downhill all the way as we proceed up river! He’s not on the bike! In actuality my altimeter said we gained about 1000 feet in elevation throughout the day. I stopped and read several historic markers all giving details of Lewis and Clark’s trek. At one point, Lenore, there was an 1898 Tram to bring grain down to the railroad at the river’s edge from the plains that are 1600 feet up from the deep gorge. It is very difficult to believe there is flat land up there but everyone I ask assures me it’s so and now and then I can see houses and the edges of the wheat fields up there.

I fell again today, again because of the cleats in the shoes that attach to the pedals. I had stopped for half an hour and adjusted the cleats on the shoes and the pedal spring mechanism that holds the cleat tight. I had it all loose enough that I was much better able to get both in and out of the cleats. When I later slowed for a BOBB (butt off bike break) I easily got my feet loose and as I came to a stop my left foot easily got reengaged, the bike stopped and I fell onto my left side. This time I got a considerable amount of abrasions on the outside of the left lower leg. I used my synthetic towel and some of my sports drink Conquest and washed it good, thereby bloodying the towel some but getting the leg good and clean. I have no idea why all falls have been to the left and the mirror on the handle bar end on the left has survived. Such is the life of the long distance bike rider.

Tonight we are in a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Campground. As he picked me up some 12 miles down the road past here the TB was delighted to tell me about our campsite. “We’ve got a delightful and wonderful sight tonight,” he said. “It’s on Federal Land and so I got it for half price, only $9.00.” He has every possible discount from retired military to Golden Age Passport; and he loves to use them. Everything fit his three major criteria; price, electric, and level. “However,” he said, “there are no showers, no hot water, gravel tent sites, no shade, and the 300 foot Dworshak Dam looming half a mile up stream.” Sounded perfect to me.

I went to the toilet, which had a sink and washed my biking clothes and myself at the sink. I cleaned my bloodied towel, and scrubbed my abrasions hard. Scrubbing hard is the solution. Then I pitched my tent in the scrub grass instead of the gravel. During dinner the host came over and told us we were to use the gravel for the tent. I apologized, told him the price of the tent, and said I’d move it (I actually wouldn’t have risked putting holes in the floor in the gravel; I’d have gotten into the van). He said just leave it for tonight, and I did.

Tomorrow we go over the 500-mile mark and at the 22-mile mark at Kooskia, ID; we join the original trans America route. Recall that we took the Lewis and Clark route from Astoria up the Columbia gorge because the Trans-AM route was closed because of forest fire at Sisters, OR.