Day 24-Exchanging Loose Rock for Hills

Our plan today was to take the Weiser River Trail from Cambridge to Tamarack. It’s an old rail bed, so not much climbing. It started out paved in Cambridge. 

Unfortunately, it quickly degraded to loose rock. Tilmann could have handled it (especially if I let some air out of the tires), but Doug’s bike was not at all suited for it. It reminded me of the part of the Palouse to Cascades Trail after the Renslow Trestle (not quite as sandy though). 

After about a mile, we got off the trail, and rode back to Hwy 95 on a paved parallel road. Our thinking was that maybe the traffic on 95 wouldn’t be too bad since it was Sunday of a holiday weekend. At first, I’d say that was pretty true. But, as the day went on, the traffic increased. We also had a pretty strong headwind for the first 20 miles or so.   

In exchange for not riding the trail, we had to do a few pretty good climbs (the first ones made worse by the headwind). Still, overall, we were undoubtedly going faster on the road. 

Because it was mostly just farmland and stuff, I didn’t take many photos. There was this…

“Butt Nuggets!!!” Yum!

We stopped in Council and had an early lunch/second breakfast at the Seven Devils Cafe. I noticed we could ride a parallel road to the Hwy to keep us off it for a couple of miles. Then we were back to it. There wasn’t much shoulder. I just rode as far over as I could. For the most part, drivers were somewhat okay. Doug had a bit of a different experience…getting smoked by 2 diesel pickups. It just seems like women get more courtesy than men. 

There was a spot on the map where the Weiser River Trail crossed 95. On the Hwy, we were climbing, but the trail went under the Hwy way down below. 

To me, it looked pretty good here…no way to get to it though. 

I stopped at Evergreen Campground to wait for Doug. There was trail access there, but we were thinking we only had one more small climb (we were wrong), so we stayed on the road. 

Just before Tamarack, we came to the Huckleberry Bakery. 

I wanted pie and ice cream. They had sold out of their pie, but had huckleberry cheesecake. It was very good! That, and a big bottle of Powerade fueled me to New Meadows. 

Once I was into New Meadows, I was back on a road I’ve ridden before (Idaho Hot Springs). It will be that way until Kooskia on Hwy 12.

Our destination was Zims Hot Springs. I stayed here last time, and I knew I wanted to stay here again. The hot springs gs pool is great! Now I’m old enough to get the senior rate! Total with hot spring soaking, $15.50 (that includes my half of the $15 camping fee). 

The sky was looking ominous, so we quickly set up our tents. We dodged that one as the clouds passed to the north. 

We went for a lovely swim in the pool. It felt fabulous! There are two pools. One is a hot soaking pool at 103 degrees. The other is more for swimming at 89 degrees. I went in both. The hot pool was too hot for Doug. 

With our skin all wrinkled, we decided we had soaked long enough. When we got back to the tents, there were more ominous clouds closing in. The tent sites have awnings over the picnic tables. Before long, giant drops started falling. Our tents were all closed up, and we sat at the picnic table under the awning. It really started coming down hard, and the wind was whipping like mad. I was staying fairly dry under the awning. I did put my Shake Dry jacket on. Doug finally made a mad dash for his tent. I waited until it mostly stopped. Now the thunderstorm has passed, so we’ll be able to cook some dinner. 
Nice awning!