we took it easy today, knowing we really needed to rest up after a week of riding. rest up for the final two phases of this stage: transitioning from the columbia to the snake river and transgressing the bitterroot mountains, lolo pass, and into missoula.
so after spending the night in the marcus whitman hotel, eating a very nice breakfast, we rode a short 25 miles to lewis and clark sp, where we camped for the night. the ride was relatively uneventful, riding through wheat fields. something i've never really done before, but understand will be doing a lot of in the next month. there was a really nice downhill run. i've come to the conclusion that i'm a real wimp on the downhills greater than 4%. i need to leave those to the fearless maurizio and even jim. faster than 25 mph, especially with a wind and loaded with gear, i just ride my brakes and stress. but get me on a 3 or 2% grade, where i can still peddle in high gear... i'm good. and that's what this was. you get that rhythym going and it feels wonderful.
the state park was a small afair, on the banks of the touchet river, actually a swifly flowing creek. jim and i waded in to a pool and soaked. cool, refreshing.
then jim turned on his charm. we met a pair of travellers, grant and claire. grant and claire are getting ready to start grad school mba, u of michigan, come the fall. they're out driving the country first. they had mentioned to jim about wanting to go to a little brew pub a couple miles down the road after they got back from touring wine country. i convinced, without much effort i might add, jim to invite us along with them, which they were happy to do. so we completed our day of r&r with a couple of pints of IPA and a pretty decent pizza at the laht neppur (ruppenthahl) brewery. we practiced telling our stories and they told us their plans for the future. tomorrow's mba's.
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