Woke up and felt like I had been beaten up! The little DR 650 had been handily pummeled as well. Her chain and sprocket were cashed in, and really, it was about time, as I had been riding the original set. I now had about 14,000 miles on the bike. We tightened the chain and headed off east toward the BC wine country on Hwy 3. This is a beautiful area, filled with orchards and vineyards. Both of us were ready to turn south, so we took a little road to the Nighthawk, WA border crossing. Not a lot goin' on there, which is really nice if you want a quick and easy border crossing session!
We headed to Oroville, WA to fuel up and purchased a map of Washington State to figure out our options for our trip south, as there were many. Wanting to stay as far away from big towns as possible, we chose to take Hwy 20 from Tonasket over Sherman Pass to Kettle Falls. As it turned out, this was a dream motorcycle road! It twisted and turned, climbing through ponderosa forests initially and then descending into the Columbia River valley. We then turned south on Hwy 25. There was NO traffic on this road, which was great. It follows the Columbia a fair bit of the way, and we discovered that the "free ferry" phenomenon is not limited to parts Canadian--there is one that crosses the river in Gifford, WA! Aside from the mandatory torrential downpour, which has been the signature weather of our trip, it was a fabulous ride.
In Davenport, we took Hwy 28 to Hwy 23--again, absolutely NO traffic--this is a great way to go, and we enjoyed the rolling terrain of the Palouse and headed down on into Lewiston, Idaho. We had already had a pretty huge day, but we were so close to New Meadows, we decided to go for it. At about 10 p.m., we rolled into Whitney Ranch.
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