Day 14: Sunday, July 10, 2005   rode 79.5 miles and climbed 3677 feet today

We did not need an alarm because our neighbor was right there around 5:30 a.m. to let us know the day had begun! It looked a little moist out but we thought the rain was over for the day and got right on the road only to stop in a few miles to put on booties and continue in a light—very light rain to breakfast at Pine City(?). The road followed the winding Pine Creek all the way to the Snake River.

Even in a light rain it was a lovely ride. This view is out the window of the café where we had breakfast.

After breakfast we arrived at the junction where we turned right to follow the Snake River back down to the Brownlee Reservoir and Dam (we saw the West end of the reservoir yesterday)

Then across the bridge below the dam – which took us into Idaho and up up and away we went!

We rode along the reservoir part of the way up the grade and 13 miles up we finally arrived at the summit 4,134 ft. Got our heart rate up! The minimum elevation today was 1,720 somewhere down on the Snake River Valley.

 (sorry about that leaning pole and the other leaning stuff but my straightening did not take!)

Back down off the heights we met a couple from Belgium enjoying the ride East to West.

No internet access tonight either so it will be nice to get to Riggins tomorrow and be able to get all this posted to the website.

Just a note about the roads. We were remembering how – on our ride down the Pacific Coast in 2002 as soon as we crossed the Oregon border into California the roads deteriorated for bicycling. Same as we crossed into Idaho! And we experienced our first mild road rage on the downhill run into Cambridge. Not serious but not courteous either! But 99.9 percent of the drivers are very courteous – especially all of the truck drivers.

We actually arrived at Council earlier than we had expected and Dennis really did remark that we could probably have made it to Riggins! But he was kidding and we enjoyed our little motel in Council, slept reasonably well and were better off for having stopped there I am sure!