Corner To Corner - Chapter 13, Closer To Home

One thing about bikers, you can almost always approach them and chat. We can spot each other a mile a away. In the small breakfast areas of hotels it’s very easy to spot the other bikers – most of the time we all have Harley shirts on for one thing. This morning at the Holiday Inn Express in Missoula we sat next to a table of guys from Michigan. We’d chatted briefly in the parking lot when we checked in yesterday, and met up with them at breakfast today. There is that commonality of interests that instantly binds you to each other, and we talked of places we’d been, and our ride in Michigan and it turns out they were from the same area. This morning they were headed south towards Yellowstone on a road Tony and I had taken a couple of years ago, so we gave them some suggestions, and we all swapped stories before heading out. It’s this way in every hotel we’ve been at – especially as we’ve headed West and run into the Sturgis bound traffic. Our hotel was also filled with a crowd of Hells Angels – actual Hells Angels. I’ve rarely felt intimidated, but these guys kept me on my guard.

We headed West on US-12 this morning out of Missoula and up the Bitterroot valley. It was somewhat overcast, and I wore a long sleeve t-shirt, but we kept adding layers as we headed into the mountains and by the time we crested Lolo Pass we had shirt, sweat shirt, and leather jackets on. It was still a bit “wintery” up there. The road over Lolo Pass from Missoula to Lewiston, Idaho is a long and very lonely one. There are signs warning you to gas up before heading out, and it’s nearly 112 miles between stations. The Dyna has a 4.5 gallon tank, and I can get about 160 miles on it before I start getting nervous. Tony’s Geezer Glide has a 6.5 gallon tank and he can drive nearly 280 miles.

As soon as US-12 turned up the canyon to the pass I noticed a smell I hadn’t smelled in a couple of weeks. I can’t really describe it, but anyone who has grown up in the mountains of the West knows it. It’s that fresh, crisp, clean smell you get along a brook or stream in a canyon. It’s not “piney” at all or “woodsy”, but it’s a scent that instantly takes me back to the mountains where I grew up. I didn’t smell it all in the mountains of the East – I think the air is too “heavy” there. You need dryer air, maybe some “altitude” as well, and of course less people. However, that scent told me that I was getting closer to home. And when we crossed the pass and into Idaho, we dropped into the Pacific Time Zone, and reset our watches one last time. Now we really are getting close.

Dropping down the other side into Idaho we followed the Clearwater River all the way until it joined the Snake River in Lewiston. We watched this river grow from a trickle to a fairly good sized body of water – and all the way, the water was crystal clear. It was so clear you could see the rocks on the bottom.

About half way down we stopped for gas and a break in the small town of Orofino. Across from the gas station the local girls dance team was having a bake sale, and all the girls, and a few of the moms were eyeing the bikes, so we rode over to say hi and grab a snack. They had a couple of card tables of home-made goodies, and we found a nice ziplock bag of white chocolate chip cookies. I asked how much, and they said, “as much as you want to pay, it’s a donation”. So I said how about $10, is that enough? It was, and they were all smiles, as were we because the cookies were quite good. We munched on them all afternoon on the road. Mom asked about where we were going and we recounted the story of Key West back to Seattle, and they all got bug eyed. One of the girls asked for a ride, but we had luggage all strapped on so we unfortunately had to decline. We hopped on and fired them up and they all smiled and waved as we pulled out. Nothing like a small town bake sale.

We rode down into Lewiston, Idaho on the Snake River and our stomachs said it was time for lunch. We cruised Main Street looking for something interesting, and we saw a sign in a small brownstone downtown across from the railroad tracks that said “Effie Burger”. We did a nicely illegal U-turn and pulled up and went into this small tavern where every booth was filled and so we sat at the old-fashioned lunch counter. The first thing I noticed was the price. I’m not usually price conscious, but the menu said “Effie Burger - $17.” I turned to Tony and said “what the hell?” but by this time he’d spotted a picture on the wall. This thing was huge – it had to be a dinner plate sized thing. Fortunately they also offered “half Effie Burgers”. We each ordered a half burger, and I was hoping I was ordering from Effie, but it turned out it was Connie. She owned the place, I could see her name on the license. She apparently walked right off the set of the old Dick Van Dyke show, about as tall as a fire-plug and complete with Rosemarie hairdo and Laura Petrie capri pants. I overheard her age – approximately anyway, she said she didn’t need to sign up for Medicare for a few years. The burgers were fantastic, and she was happy we said so. We again had to tell her, and most of the people at the lunch counter about the trip, and how we were on the tail end of it. It’s amazing the number of people we run into who get that wistful look in their eye, and who have rarely been more than 200 miles from where they are sitting. We are indeed fortunate to be able to travel as we have.

It had warmed up to 85 so we changed out of our jackets and into sleeveless shirts and pulled out and back onto US-12 West, and crossed the Snake River into Washington. Home. Our license plates on the bikes were no longer out of place. And gas was still over $4 a gallon. We were most definitely home! It was interesting to note that places like Key West had cheaper gas than Washington where we have refineries and no transportation costs. Go figure.

Roaring down US-12 towards Walla Walla and Pasco we passed through what is known as the Pallouse. It’s a huge wheat growing area of Washington, and perhaps the nicest scenery of the day. Rolling hills of dry farmed wheat and small groves of trees, red barns and small grain elevators. The first crop had been harvested and the stubble was still not plowed under, and the next crop was ripening nicely, so as far as you could see were golden fields of grain. One of my favorite artists is a guy named Z.Z. Wei, and he paints the most magnificent paintings of the Palllouse. Compare his painting to the actual and you'll see.
We zipped through Walla Walla and into Pasco for the night – traveling some 369 miles today. It was a nice relaxing day as a road trip should be. Tomorrow we’ll continue further west on US-12 until it ends and actually hit the coast of Washington at Gray’s Harbor, and then Monday morning motor out to Neah Bay – the far northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula, and then home to Seattle. We’ve lost track of the days of the week, and when retelling our trip to folks, we have to say, “when we were in Indiana – what, 8 days ago?” and things like that. I have to confess as well that as we pulled into Lewiston, Idaho, we passed a junction for US-95 South – which goes south through Idaho, and into Nevada and Arizona, and a road I took back in May on a solo bike trip, I got to thinking, Hmmm, maybe we don’t need to go home after all.