Day 80: Wandering the Idaho Panhandle
Kimaiah, ID to Grangeville, ID
173.24 Miles | 3:27 Riding Time
It’s Saturday, June 29 2024, and it’s Day 80 of my cross country motorcycle trip.
I started this morning with a particularly nice moment of Zen. The sounds of the river, the birds and other morning critters were a welcome addition to some morning coffee on the deck. Here’s the video (volume up).
With no particular plan for today, I wandered the Idaho panhandle. The ride from Kamiah to Grangeville is only 33 miles, but I managed to make it 173. I was originally thinking about taking RT-64 to Rt-62 to Winchester, but that road was closed. So I wandered a bit further south and then took RT-95 up to Winchester. Why Winchester? There’s a road there that looks particularly twisty and I wanted to check it out.
Winchester Grade was a bit of a wild road. It starts at 3,997 ft and descends to 842 feet along a seriously narrow, steep and twisty road. It was fun though, except for the one turn where a white pickup was coming up the hill. Coming off the ridge and into the valley, I reconnected with the Clearwater river, and followed RT-12 south back through Kamiah—retraced some of the road from this morning—then headed south to Grangeville.
Grangevile is a nice town, and I’d recommend The Rib Guy and Gal for some good BBQ and a cold brew. Met some folks there that were very nice, and gave me some info about a friend of theirs that’s a “tire guy” in Boise if I needed help finding the right tires for my bike. Thanks!
A nice ride + a tasty meal = a good day.
