2011 Travels #13 Mostly Idaho and Oregon

G & M Travels 2011 #13  

Howdy, We spent a little over a week in Idaho after leaving Peter and Isabelle's house. We left the day after they came back from their ride and drove some of the same roads that they had just bicycled. 

We traveled north on Hiway 55, which is the Payette River Scenic Biway, turned east on the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway which then becomes Hiway 21 and the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway at Lowman and headed up towards Banner Summit. 

 The first night we stayed near a river and hot springs. The hot springs were running down the side of the mountain to the river. I made the mistake of putting my sandaled toes into the spring and it was scalding hot. I suppose where it mixed with the river water it was a nice temperature. We didn't check. My toes hurt for hours...don't do that! 

 Next day we headed over Banner Pass and decided to stop at Stanley Lake to try kayaks and to utilize Mike's just purchased fishing license. We found a spot right on the lake and enjoyed two nights doing all the stuff we planned. Mike put his little motor on his kayak and caught some trout! I got to try out my brand new kayak and I like it a lot. And this one holds air....very important. We had some very nice neighbors that we talked with quite a bit and they suggested that we take a route we didn't plan on but decided to try. 

 So, at the town of Stanley we headed up the 93 and the Salmon River Scenic Byway! Idaho has lots of Byways!! Weird thing about this area is that it gets extremely cold at night. They say that at least once a week it's the coldest place in the lower 48. We experienced 29 degrees and that is cold. The days were in the mid 70's so a huge differential.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't remember the name of the lake that we next visited. It was WAY UP the mountainside on this one lane gravel road with major switchbacks. I've no idea how high we climbed but it was major. It took an hour or more to go the eighteen miles to a tiny campground.  We stayed a couple nights and Mike caught a couple more trout. They're awfully good eating ya know. We didn't kayak at this unknown lake because it got kinda windy. It would have been a good place to do so however. Next me. OK - back DOWN this crazy road with blind corners, hairpin turns and log trucks coming the other way. Very exciting E ticket ride!  

Then we headed into Montana for a day. Hiway 93 goes toward Missoula but we turned onto 12 and onto yet another byway, the Wild and Scenic River Corridor. First you climb over Lolo Pass and then drive for one hundred miles or so along the Clearwater River. It's quite  lovely. Our destination was an area of campgrounds off the Selway River that our neighbor at Stanley Lake had told us about. There were a number of places to camp but they were doing prescribed burns in the area and the smoke was horrible! We did go in and stay one night but left in the morning since it was so hard to breath. We scored an enormous amount of firewood there and that's always a happy event. 

 We and our firewood then headed to Chalis and, after doing laundry and gettng some groceries, headed up toward a highly recommended campground WAY UP the mountainside called Dent Acres. There's a huge reservoir and a famous bridge, called Dent Bridge. The campground proved to be very nice with full hookups and cheap. It was an Army Corp of Engineers project and we were amazed to find such a place so far out in the boonies. Of course the road was another scenic byway...Elk River Back Country! 

Then we headed toward Lewiston which is right across the river from Clarkston, WA where we met up with Joyce at the WalMart Store!! After more shopping and eating wonderful hamburgers at Rooster's, we headed south on 129 towards Oregon. We did stay one night in Washington at Field Springs State Park. We were the only ones there. The stars were amazing and lots of satellites were spotted. And that wood we scored several days ago was still serving us well. 

 Yesterday we headed UP and DOWN into Oregon and made our way down to the Wallowa National Forest. We are currently staying at Wallowa Lake State Park. Joyce's little rig has an engine problem (it quit running and we're suspecting the fuel pump) and we're dealing with having it repaired. 

 The plan is to get it towed into town tomorrow morning and get the fuel pump that should arrive at the fix it shop late today, and get it installed. Hopefully we'll then be off but you just never know how these things will play out. Anyway, for now we're here and even though the park said yesterday that they were totally full, they've found spots for us both tonight. Stay tuned! G&M