Idaho Bike Trip, Sept, 2010

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Here are pictures from our car/bike trip to Idaho.  This blog will have fewer cutesy comments than usual -- just photos and short captions.

Packed up and ready to go.  The foam around the bar keeps it from humming at high speeds.

Our camp site at Viento State Park in Oregon.  We were close to the railroad tracks and freeway, so it was very noisy (several trains per night).

This is a sunset on the Columbia River, across the tracks from our campsite.

Lena working on the bacon and eggs breakfast in one of our disposable frying pans (before camping we buy a bunch of frying pans at garage sales for $1 each, then toss them instead of cleaning them).

Happy camper.

 

This is where we started our bike ride along the Columbia.

Loading and unloading the bikes is a bit tricky, but I'm getting the hang of it.

 

The ride started with a big hill.

 

Pit stop.  Lena's displaying the "Don't take a picture of me coming out of the porta potty" hand signal.

At "Bridge of the Gods" in Cascade Falls.  This was made with 134,000 erector sets.

Constant trains on both sides of the river.

 

Typical portion of the bike trail.

Stairways in the trail have troughs for wheeling your bikes up and down.

 

Bonneville substation (for Jenny's benefit).

Smoked salmon and cream cheese for lunch at the fish hatchery.

A steelhead above the 70 year old "Herman the Sturgeon."

 

At the Bonneville dam.  You can watch the salmon, steelhead and other fish swimming up the fish ladder.

Here's the fish ladder from above.

 

 

The upstream side of the Bonneville dam -- worth visiting.

More breakfast.  Lena's in one of our reclining chairs -- they are nappable.

Here's the lake at our campsite in Heyburn State park, south of Coeur d'Alene.  The bridge in the background is on the bike trail (see below).

We had a great view from the campsite.

I googled nursing homes in Coeur d'Alene and set up a gig at this one (unpaid of course).  It was a large and very appreciative audience.  More with-it residents than the one I play at locally.

Our first ride on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.  This is a 71 mile smooth, paved trail with no cars and no hills.  We ride from the campsite.

 

 

 

An osprey nesting on the bridge shown above.

We had a lot of rain that night, and the place was looking pretty dreary.

This mini-stream flowed under the tent, and we had two quarts of water in one corner of the tent under our air mattress.  The next day we did some drying of stuff at the laundromat.

But we had a non-rainy afternoon with scattered sunshine, and took a longer ride on the trail.

 

 

 

 

Lena did 40 miles, and I continued on to ride my age (that is, 57 miles at age 57), and got back just around sunset.

Lena had a New York strip steak ready for me when I got back.  Tender with great flavor.

 

Here's where we did our Internetting (St. Maries, Idaho).

We've had much rain, and today (9/19) we are drying out in a Howard Johnson's hotel.  Nice place -- I could get used to this.

This view outside the hotel shows the weather -- lots of heavy rain.

Slate's Prime Grill -- Great restaurant -- breakfast on Sunday and dinner on Monday.

After two nights in the hotel, we decided to high tail it out of there to the closest location with no rain in the forecast. Lots of research and weather map loading...

...and we settled on Ponderosa State Park, near McCall, ID.

Early start on Monday. 

Good weather for driving.  Here's the view coming into Lewiston.

Ponderosa State Park is at an elevation of 4800 feet, and it's significantly colder here.  But there's no rain!

 

The trickiest part of camping in a small car is finding things, and finding the right backpack.  As soon as we arrive, we redistribute some of the packs to the front seats.  By keeping the different bags in  their assigned locations (front, back or trunk, right side or left), it's easier to find things.  Here's the map:

The campground is next to a lake.

 

 

We did our uploading from this coffee shop in McCall; note Lake Payette, and the ski area in the background.

After Interneting, we decided to ride around the lake -- a distance of 21 miles.

We picked up some grilled chicken, and ate it at this location on the shore.

Much of the view is sucked up by huge mansions, but here are some locations where the road is close to the water:

We didn't know it, but about four miles of the road was dirt/sand, which our narrow-tired bikes didn't like.  Here's Lena caught in the act of skidding out.

But those miles made the remaining trip even more enjoyable.

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