West 16 Day 6

Spokane, Washington to Chemult, Oregon:  479.3 miles

I was awake before anyone else, so I grabbed a cup of coffee to watch Spokane wake up.  It was very peaceful sitting on Keith's deck watching the sky begin to get light.
Soon enough, we had to pack up and head out after a quick breakfast.  It was great to meet Keith and also great to be back on the road on another cool morning.

We started out on the Interstate for a while.  Traffic wasn't too bad, especially once we got a short way away from Spokane.  Traveling south, the area was quite pretty.  We got off on US395, which I thought was going to be a 2-lane road, but it ended up being another four lane divided highway.  This was fine as we were able to make great time.  Four years ago when we went through Washington, I remember verdant valleys filled with crops.  This part of Washington was bone dry, with what appeared to be only wheat and hay crops when the arid landscape wasn't sagebrush and rocks.  Early on, there were some picturesque lakes though.

We got to the Columbia River at the Oregon/Washington border.  The GPS wanted to put us on I-84, but I chose WA14 north of the river instead.  This was a good choice as there was almost no traffic and the speeds were comparable.  The scenery early on was flat and barren, as the road followed loosely along the Columbia River.

There were patches of what looked fruit trees and grape vines and occasional signs for vineyards.  These contrasted to the overall dry landscape.  I was surprised there wasn't more in the way of towns since the area was picturesque, with a good water source.

Farther on down WA14, the elevation rose as the Columbia River Gorge began to take shape.  Here, WA14 hugged the river.

I-84 could be seen south of the river in spots.  Likely the scenery was pretty there too, but there was definitely more traffic south of the river.

We saw a sign for "Stone Henge" and pulled in to have a look.  It was a concrete recreation of the actual Stone Henge, originally constructed as a memorial to WWI.  I'm really not sure why the choice was made to make a Stone Henge replica as a WWI memorial, but I'll assume there was some kind of logic behind it.

From Stone Henge, the US97 bridge over the Columbia River could be seen.

In the background, Mount Hood loomed over everything.

Back on the road, the intersection of I-84 and US97 was a zoo.  And they were doing chip seal construction at the same time.  I started to head south on US97, only to see a very scary sign.

I might have been able to make it, maybe, possibly...  But I chose to commit the cardinal sin of turning around in a construction zone to go back to the zoo and get gas.  Farther down US97, there were gas pumps, but it was definitely ambiguous if they were still active.

Headed back south again, the chip seal was the loosest, gooiest I've ever seen.  I was afraid that we'd end up in a long convoy of slow vehicles once out of the active construction zone, but the mayhem straightened itself out soon enough.
We made good time heading south; there wasn't much there.  This part of Oregon is mostly desert, with only a few small towns.  We tried to stop to get something to eat in one of the towns, but there wasn't anything there.

We ended up stopping in Madras for lunch.  Madras sounds Indian (subcontinent), but we ate 'merican at the Black Bear Diner.  Lunch was winding down so we were almost alone there.  The food was quite good.
From Madras down to Bend was bonkers with traffic.  After Bend, things got a little better, but US97 is quite obviously a main north south thoroughfare in this area.
We got down to Chemult and decided to stop for the day.  This is a close as we can get to Crater Lake, and we'd rather do that first thing in the morning when it is quieter.

Dinner was just down the road from the hotel - it was adequate at best.  The Zingers back in the hotel room were a good way to end the day.

West 16 Day 5

Harlowton, Montana to Spokane, Washington:  485.4 miles

If Day 4 started out cool to cold, Day 5 started out cold.
I had a brisk walk to the gas station for coffee, before talking with a couple other guys who were looping around on rented Harleys for a while.  They had gone over beartooth pass the previous day and said it was brutally cold there - having recently snowed.

We were on the road near daylight.  The sky was cloudy, almost hazy with what looked like rain in the distance.  Nothing was on the radar, so we soldiered down the road, trying to keep warm.

Shortly after leaving Harlowton, a mule deer buck jumped the fence by the road and ran through the ditch toward the road right in front of us.  I saw him, he saw us.  We both took evasive action and missed each other by the slimmest of margins.  If the cold didn't keep me awake, that deer will.

We enjoyed riding through Montana's wide open spaces.  The road varied through the morning between straight with some very curvy areas as well.  There were virtually no other cars on the road.

We went through the Helena National forest which was a nice change of pace.  Unfortunately, the settings on the camera were set to overexpose at some point near the end of the national forest, making many of the later pictures from the day unusable.
Still, even without the pictures, the time through Montana was wonderful.  What a beautiful state, with wide open spaces, mountains, hills, animals.  The pictures in memory are worth more than the camera pictures, if a little hard to share online.

Shortly outside of Helena, we jumped on the interstate for a while, getting off just north of Missoula.  We weren't in a hurry and if anything had a little extra time to get to Spokane at an appropriate time.  Getting off the interstate allowed us explore some more 2-lane roads through Montana and Idaho.

We worked our way north and west through western Montana.  As we got near the Idaho border, we started to see smoke, and shortly thereafter, smell smoke.  There were signs warning people not to stop on the road, as there was lots of firefighting activity, including fire helicopters picking up water from the Clark Fork River.  In some places, the road was completely shrouded in smoke.

Thompson Falls was smokey, but still open for business.  We had a great lunch, before motoring out through Thompson Pass.  I was a little concerned that the road might be gravel since signs warned that it was not maintained in the winter, but it was paved and quite smooth all the way over the pass and into Idaho.

We jumped back on the interstate to get past Coeur d'Alene and into Spokane.  Getting off the interstate, we worked our way through Spokane, which was pretty crazy, even in the early afternoon.
We made our way to Keith's house.  Keith was a friend of my Dad's, who was not able to make it to his funeral, but I wanted to meet him.  So we made arrangements to spend the evening with him.  We got there a little before he did, and enjoyed sitting in the cool afternoon on his porch.
Once he got home, we visited with him a bit, getting to know each other and talking about Dad, stories, history ... life.
Dinner that night was at Cafe Rio - which was very good and filling.  Outside the restaurant, was a very unusual car - it appeared to be a Chrysler Lebaron, that was outfitted on the outside with an actual boat.  From a few feet away, it actually looks like a boat going down the road.  It was quite unique, to say the least.  And with no frame modification, was still road legal.

Back at Keith's house, we talked a bit more before turning in for the night.  I wasn't sure what to expect, given that I had never met him, but was very glad we made the stop.