Lewiston, ID
Above: This was about the most exciting view of the day. I thought the colors were pretty cool.
Sunday, 6/18 10pm
Location: Lewiston, ID
Coordinates:
Didn’t get a reading
Today’s mileage: about 68
Tomorrow’s destination: Winchester, ID
To begin, I’m actually writing this entry a bit retroactively. I got a little lazy this week in terms of my blog entries, so I’m catching up now (Friday).
In any case, the segment from Dayton, WA to Lewiston, ID wasn’t the most exciting of the trip. It’s pretty much just farmland and rolling hills between the two towns. In fact, part of the trip today was pretty awful:
I stopped for lunch in a little town called Pomeroy. Since it was Sunday, combined with the fact that there’s not a whole lot in Pomeroy, my only option for lunch was a local grocery store. I grabbed some food and sat down outside under a little vestibule in front of the store. As I bit into my burrito, I noticed that my shirt was covered in what looked like seeds. Since I’d been riding past wheat fields all day long, this didn’t seem odd to me. Without a thought, I attempted to brush off the seeds with my free hand. To my surprise, the “seeds” began swarming around. Ah! Those weren’t seeds! They were flies! No. Worse, they were FLEAS! Yes, the kind that torment your dog. Needless to say, being covered in fleas is niether the most appetizing way to eat lunch, nor the most pleasant sensation. I got out of Pomeroy as soon as possible, and I didn’t look back!
I had the pleasure of switching maps once I reached Clarkston, WA. I always feel a rush of accomplishment and pride when I move on to a new map. Plus, switching maps also meant that I had reached the border of Idaho. Since I’d never been to Idaho before, it was fun to check off another state.
Trivia Fact: Hells Canyon in Western Idaho is the deepest river gorge in the lower 48. When I first read that, I figured that there has to be some sort of catch, because there’s no way it’s deeper than the Grand Canyon, or else I would have heard about it before. I assumed that the catch had to do with the definition of a “gorge” versus a “canyon”, but it turns out that the catch is in HOW you measure depth. Several days later, I learned that if you measure from the bottom of the river to the river banks, then the Grand Canyon is much “deeper”. However, if you measure from the bottom of the river to the highest point along the river, then Hell’s Canyon is “deeper”. Hell’s Canyon happens to be situated alongside some mountains, so if you measure from the river bottom to the top of the mountains, it’s pretty darn deep. Well, I wasn’t too impressed with that technicality, and I imagine most other people aren’t either. Hence, most of us haven’t heard of Hell’s Canyon, Idaho.
As I went in search for dinner, I came upon a stop sign, and a kid on a motorcycle crossed the intersection in front of me. The reason this event stuck out in my mind is because the kid looked like he was barely 16. I remember thinking to myself that allowing a 16 year-old drive a motorcycle has got to be the dumbest thing a parent (or the law) could possibly do. Two days later, when I reached Lowell, Idaho, I was flipping through the local newspaper and I saw a short article that caught my attention. On Sunday evening, precisely when I was in Lewiston, a 17 year-old boy riding a motorcycle was killed in a collision near the state park where I stayed. I have no way of knowing whether it was the same kid that I saw. After all, there could be tons of teenage boys in Lewiston with motorcycles. However, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I had seen that kid in the last few moments of his life. And maybe it wasn’t just coincidence that that particular kid had caught my attention at that moment. Hmm. It gave me the chills.
Tags: Travel
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