Sunday, June 11, 2000

Today we rode 56 miles from Wallace ID to Thompson Falls MT. The first six miles took 1 hour and 25 minutes. At least ½ of the time we were moving less then 5 miles per hour - the hill was very steep. We climbed 1,460 feet in the first 6 miles. The sky was gray when we left Wallace, however 4 miles later the rain gods again let us know that they were around.

The first six miles took us to the top of Dobson pass at 4,200 feet elevation; we then dropped down to the Coeur D’Alene River at Prichard. At one point on the way down, a buck deer ran across the road about 75 yards in front of our bicycle - a beautiful sight on a rainy day. We stopped at a service station at Prichard for a hot chocolate to warm up, as the temperature was 40 F. and we were very wet and cold.

We covered the next 12 miles in a rainstorm, and arrived in Murray ID at 10:45. Nothing was open but we found a porch with a roof and we decided to take a rest. A few minutes later, an older gentleman drove up in a pickup truck and announced that the restaurant next door would open at 11:00 AM. We decided to wait because we needed to eat and get warm and dry. (Murray is where Calamity Jane once brought 8 girls into town for a show.)

It was 11:10 AM went the restaurant finally opened. We immediately got out of as many of our wet clothes as we could and ordered lunch, which consisted of a hamburger, fish sandwich, two orders of curly fries, and two hot chocolates. The hot chocolates came first and both Mary Kay and I used them to get warm. We ordered refills before our meal arrived. We finished eating, put on our wet clothes and began the climb to the top of Thompson pass, elevation 4,859 feet.

The rain had stopped while we were in the restaurant. The road was only two years old and it was a pleasure to ride upon. The only problem was that we were both tired. As we got closer to the top of the hill, the road got steeper until we were again going less than 3 miles per hour most of the time. It started to rain and we got wet again. When the rain stopped, we were almost to the top and we were exhausted. We walked the bike the last few curves to the top of the pass.

By the way, I forgot to tell everyone that the scenery was great considering that we saw most of it through the rain. We took some pictures at the top of the pass and started down to Thompson Falls. For the first 10 miles our speed never dropped below 25 miles per hour. We arrived in Thompson Falls at 4:45 PM Mountain Time. We were supposed to go on to Plains MT but we stopped at the first motel that we came to where from our room we had a beautiful view of the Clark River.