Republic to Kettle Falls June 26, 2009 - We really enjoyed Republic and the day of rest. We had some good food and met two nice cops that gave us inside info on where to go and what to do in Republic. One officer reminded us of the John Candy character in Family Vacation that was the security guard at Wally World. On Friday morning June 26th we left Republic, WA and immediately started climbing from our campsite at the local county fairgrounds. It was a good day to leave town, there was a motorcycle rally coming to town and most of them would be camping at the fairgrounds where we were staying. The sound of derailleurs was being replaced by the sound of Harley's.
Our goal today is to climb the tallest pass in Washington, the Sherman Pass. The weather was ideal and the climb though difficult was fun and we all enjoyed the ride. Somewhere toward the summit we stopped for a rest and about 50 yards away (depending on who's version you believe) there was a brown bear. The bear sort of looked at us and finally bounded away into the woods, our first bear sighting. We topped the Sherman Pass afternoon and had some construction workers take our pic at the pass summit. The decent down brought across the Columbia River and into Kettle Falls, population 1640 and one old grouch the town sign said. I guess each year Kettle Falls selects an old grouch! We spent the night at Kettle Falls and were off to Ione, Washington the next day.
Kettle Falls to Ione June 27, 2009 - Got a good start this morning and had a nice semi-downhill ride for 8 miles to Colville. We ate breakfast in an old saloon in Colville then did some climbing our of the Columbia River Valley through some beautiful area of which much was the Colville National Forest. This was a ride of 50 miles or so with very little development and sparse population. It was another beautiful ride with lots of climbing and a great 10 mile downhill from Beaver Lodge, a little oasis for us in the forest where we spent some time having Gatorade and snacks. The 10 mile decent took us to Tiger which is basically a single historic building of some kind ran by a woman from Australia. From Tiger we proceeded to our final destination Ione for our overnight rest. We stayed at an RV park ran by Gabe from San Francisco. Gabe told us all about his past working for Livermore Lab and how he ended up in Ione. around a campfire that night. This was a depressed area but Gabe's place was very nice and well maintained we camped in his backyard, had nice showers and really appreciated Gabe's hospitality.
Ione to Newport June 28, 2009 - The road has flattened out. We head toward Newport and the Idaho state line today. Much of the ride is along the Pend Oreille River (pronounced Pond De Ray) assume there were a lot of French settlers and trappers in the area back in the day. We saw a number of deer, eagles, and a skunk attempted but failed to spray us along the way. Most of the ride today was along the river and on alternative roads that are less traveled so the ride was very pleasant. Just outside of Newport we found a National Forest camp site (Pioneer Point) and settled in for the night. The camp site was pretty primitive and "lumpy", I got my initiation in taking a solar shower. Amazingly the shower was much better than expected and a nice alternative to taking no shower at all. Don, May and I went into town and ate some good Mexican food in Newport. Once back at the campsite we all turned in early after some campfire conversation with our traveling companions from Maine-John and Art.
Newport to Sand Point, Idaho June 29, 2009 - After leaving Pioneer Point Camp this morning we proceeded through Newport and Oldtown, WA. Once out of Oldtown we were in Idaho. The road was supposed to be very flat today but it wasn't. It also is warming up, into the 80's but most found this pleasant, I like the cooler, wet weather myself. Once again we took a less traveled route and found ourselves meandering along the Pend Oreille River ending up in Sandpoint at the Pend Oreille Lake. During the ride we saw many eagle roosting areas and found this part of Idaho to be very scenic. John, from Maine had some bike trouble and broke his chain, in addition John had some broken spokes to contend with. Once we arrived at Sandpoint and found a camp spot along the Pend Oreille Lake we went into town for some bike tires and bike supplies in our Ford Ranger support vehicle. At one of the local bike shops we found John and Art getting repairs done to John's bike. Looks like John has everything fixed and we should see them on the road tomorrow. Our route Tuesday takes us another 50 miles down the road, not sure of our final destination but it will bring us one day closer to the mother of all passes on this trip, Logan Pass at Glacier National Park. More on that later.
Newport to Sandpoint
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