The day started in Ontario, Oregon. I woke up to the smell onions. Initially I thought maybe I forgot to wash everything, but that wasn’t the case. Apparently we were in onion country. This little area exports 1 billion pounds of onions every season. Occasionally throughout the morning we’d pick up the scent. It was pretty cool.
Early in the day we crossed into Idaho and what a treat it was. Being the weekend there were more people, but not enough to ruin the experience. We saw these enormous treeless rolling hills that were the most beautiful green. The color completely covered these hills. Swampkat will try to find a good picture of them for you guys. Behind these hills and off in the distance were snow capped peaks surrounded by clouds. I was glad when the road swung away from these monsters, I wasn’t mentally ready to deal with the temperatures that riding through that terrain brings.
After getting some gas at Sinclair’s, it’s the gas station with the Dino on the sign, we followed the Little Salmon creek down this epic canyon. The 360 video today was taken next to it. It was turbulent and it had a couple of water falls. Later it joined the Salmon river. I couldn’t believe how wide and slow moving it got. There were a few tourist towns along it’s banks which caused a little chaos because we were still in the canyon and everything and everyone were jammed together. We had to be extra careful around those jag offs. No one was really paying attention. Luckily this didn’t last long.
We drove past our first reservation on this trip. It was the Nes Perce. It was a beautiful area, but it’s hard not to think about the b.s. that brought them there.
We crossed into Washington at some point, I missed the sign, it was around there that the wind picked up. Big time. We were riding through hilly farmland where giant tractors with tank treds were doing tractor things and I couldn’t believe the dirt just didn’t all blow away. The wind was crazy strong. As for how it affects the bikes, the less I say the better. Those of you who have ridden in wind know how much concentration it takes and when the wind shifts how it affects the bike.
We ended the day in Pullman, Washington. Home of the WSU Wildcats.