Day 9 - Clarkston, WA to Kamiah, ID - 70 miles - 1257 ft of elevation gain

Our hotel in Clarkston got us fueled up with waffles and omelets made to order. I wanted to take a picture of the set up, but forgot this morning. This was our first truly hot breakfast hotel.

We had a few pictures to take before leaving town, one at the Washington welcome sign because there wasn’t a sign on our way in to the state. This picture was too hard to get with the group, so I threw my bike up for a picture (yeah, I really nailed the pose on this pic 🤦🏻‍♀️). A picture of these boats welded into the shape of a wave. And then finally a picture at the Idaho welcome sign. After the pictures, we hit the rail trail along the river to avoid the highway. It was a beautiful morning, perfect temps, and a smooth rolling trail, until we got away from the river. Then the trail had these breaks in the pavement every 12 feet or so that were like going over ruts in a road that jarred the hands and your rear. Not fun!

Everyone was happy to be off the bumpy trail, but that dumped us onto route 12 for the rest of the day. It was a busy road with a narrow shoulder, but followed the river. The vegetation began to change the further into Idaho we rode. We left the desert, dry hills and began to see pine trees growing along the rivers edge and eventually up on the rolling hills. We did have one bike have two flats today, which seemed like they were from bad tubes.

When we were leaving our hotel we met a couple that was biking from Portland, OR to Portland, ME (which was the route we were going to take). They ended up riding with us for several miles, drafting off of us and then took the lead for a little. We also met a local man that passed our trailer and stopped to find out more details. He later got his bike out and rode a short distance with us. It’s been fun to meet people along the way.

It turns out there is a big boat race in town this weekend. They race speed boats 13 miles up river in the morning and then 13 miles back down river in the afternoon. This is the first race in 4 years, so kind of a big deal. We got to see and hear them practicing while we had lunch near the race start. It’s too bad we have a 95 mile biking day on Saturday, otherwise, we’d delay our start and watch a race or two.

A few of us hit the river for a cool down after our ride. The water was 58 degrees, I got cool really quick! It was an early dinner tonight, followed by some ice cream, then devotions and bed! It’s an earlier start in the morning because of the long distance.