Today was about getting back on track. After adding on about 340 additional kilometres yesterday – about the equivalent of an intended day’s ride, we still had about an hour or two to make up to get to where we were supposed to be. But it was good to have had a hotel last night, and it was nice to not have to look for breakfast somewhere since the hotel provided a not too bad one.
Kirk pre-emptively bought me a snack…
Back on the bikes it was going to be a bit of a boring road to take us mostly north with a slight east tilt, eventually turning west at Tonasket.
And it was going to be another hot and smoky day.
We took a rest stop at Chelan and it felt nice to get some feeling back in my throttle hand for a bit.
Past Chelan the temperature really ratcheted up, the skies got smokier, the traffic got a bit heavier, and the road got a lot more boring. It was just straight and hot and smoky. It was easy to tell that we were south of Osoyoos because of the landscape, the vegetation, and the smoke coming from a fire that has been burning on both sides of the border south of Osoyoos.
The hot weather the past few days made me realize how difficult packing for a motorcycle trip at this time of year can be. I’d seen cold morning temperatures int he mountains in a few places last week, and we are coming into September, the time of year when the temperatures can fluctuate wildly from day to night. Add to that the fact that we are travelling through very different climatic zones and it’s a challenge.
I figured it would be more cold than hot and packed according to that assumption. So far though, it’s been hot, hot, hot and I could have packed more than one pair of shorts for off the bike time….and probably a lot less Icebreaker pieces.
Oh well, I may be happy for it in a few days.
At Tonasket we turned east and onto a much more interesting stretch of SR20 that wound its way through a dry and empty landscape with very little shade. We found s ingle tree throwing one shadow large enough to tuck under and took a break for some water. While stopped a few cars sped past, and one small car braked hard and stopped, then began to back up towards where thee bikes were sitting at the side.
He was checking to make sure everything was ok with us ❤️
It’s little things like this that restore some of my faith in humanity. It also makes me realize what isolating and non-community oriented big cities are. Out here in the (very, very) rural areas, people think about other people and take a moment to check in on them if they think something is out of the ordinary, and I appreciate it.
We landed in Republic for lunch; what a strange little place, and as we came down the last corner before town we passed a direction sign towards a pleasant sounding place….”Swamp Creek”.
Wikipedia tells me: Republic is a city in Ferry County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,073 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Ferry County and was the largest mining camp in the Republic Mining District, and home to the “Hot Air Line” railway. Today, when we stopped in, it seems populated by old codgers and young hippies. But they have a brewing company that served decent beer, but no food.
We’d been told we should visit the old saloon, The Miner. The brewery we were sitting in had a menu for it and the intent was to finish our refreshment and then walk over there for lunch. Sadly, it was closed at 2pm so we just missed that opportunity and opted for a restaurant nearby.
Food is not high cuisine here.
Let’s just leave it at that.
Today’s road kill count included 2 skunks, 2 raccoons, 1 deer, 1 hawk, and a weasel. We also saw one live deer, all of which did a good job of reminding us that we need to watch more than just the road ahead.
From Republic we rode the next section of SR20 towards Kettle Falls and through Colville. before fuelling up and heading across to Tiger and then up the few miles to our destination for the night, Ione, where we had a room booked at the Riverview Motel. The place is motorcycle friendly and looked to be a lovely spot on a bend in the river.
Kirk was leading, which means that we went sailing right by the very visible sign on the road 🤣
We settled into a comfortable room, happily pulled off the gear, laughed at the wifi password, and wandered into town to the only open restaurant for dinner and a drink. Given the amount t of grease in our lunch….all we wanted was a garden salad, and it was perfect. That and an Irish Death Dark Ale made for a perfect dinner.
We walked back through the one street downtown, stopped at the market for a bottle of wine and a bag of chips, and settled in on the pretty little deck overlooking the river to chill until dark, listening to the sound of frying bugs in the bug zapper behind the owners fence.
We were back on schedule for tomorrow 😊
