As expected, cold woke us up. We broke down camp as quickly as possible, and hightailed across to the eatery for breakfast. We were the first there and at first we were afraid it wasn't open, but soon enough the friendly waitress got us in with some coffees and the cook had fired up the grill with Guns N Roses wailing in the background. It was a good breakfast.
When we had finished and were ready to go, things just kept happening to prevent us from getting off. Chuck and Leah emerged, so we were able to say goodbye and get our much needed photo. A woman on the highway was ill and a helicopter landed to airlift her out, creatign quite the dust cloud. Chuck said she didn't look good, but didn't look dead. Another woman stopped us to tell us about more hot springs along the way, then got us directions, then Andy got us directions, and so on.
Eventually we got ourselves moving and began the real climb up to Lolo Pass, the Idaho/Montana border. The pass was not too bad. Usually, we're finding, the passes are actually easier than the short sporadic hills. We don't know if this is a mental or physical thing, but it's a thing, that's certain. It was a pretty climb up and out of the trees, and the windy road was supplemented by our winding bikes and we craned our necks to look at everything.
At the top, there was a super nice visitors center with free hot chocolate, good maps, and smart rangers to set us straight with the springs, camping, etc. And we still had only gone about 6 miles.
Then it was downhill, really downhill, and the forest changed immensely from small pine trees, to this dense rich, lush forest of many varieties of pines, cedars, ferns. Just on the other side of the ridge, the rainfall difference was drastic. The road, still route 12, now wound along the side of Lochsa River which was absolutely clear as can be. We stopped at the Devoto Cedar Memorial where the trees were absolutely enormous, hundreds of years old. Then, we stopped to split a reuben at the next "town" another lodge that had antler everything, bear rugs, racoon rugs, moose and elk taxidermies. Enough already, but it was the last thing for 66 miles, so we figured we better take advantage.
The river wound, and wound, and our necks started to stiffen up on the left side from looking at it. The traffic wasn't too bad, but every once in a while a logging truck would whiz by and scare the pants off us.
The hot springs we were looking for was not marked, but fortunately we picked the right turnoff. There was another motorcyclist looking for a waterfall who followed the same steep and scary trail back (we're hiking at this point) to look for either the springs or waterwall. We were the lucky ones and found the hot springs. A pretty decent size pool halfway up the mountain. A newly formed family of an old hippy and clean cut Utahers was already up there, they had just finished building their cob geodome house, but I think the motorcyclist drove them away, because although he was a very nice, well traveled fellow from Missouri, he just could not keep those lips shut, and the first 30 minutes or so were anything but relaxing. After about 4 attempts at goodbye, he finally left, and we made our way down to the freezing river, back up to the tub for a short soak, and then back out to the highway, where we gobbled down some snacks and water. Still 40 miles to go. Oh my. We are not recovering as quickly as we were.
The rest of the ride was, well, long, pretty, and majestic, like the early American painters depict it. We passed a friends of Bill W sign, filled our waters, and made camp by dark. We were ready to stop. I had felt completey insane the last 20 miles and snapped like a twig when Andy through the camera to me. Forgiven, I made dinner in two parts, Lipton Strogonoff and Lipton Spanish Rice (which is just short spaghetti apparently- food scientists need to work harder!), and Andy pitched tent, borrowed our neighbors axe and chopped firewood. Full and exhausted, we went to bed.
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