White Bird to Kooskia, ID

Via Hwy 95 (mostly Old 95) to Grangeville, then Hwy 13 to Kooskia. miles. 48.2 miles.

We had hoped to go farther today, but it was not in the cards (so to speak). It was hot again and Penny said she just felt like she had "no legs" (cyclist talk for "I'm just tired"). Perhaps the 12-mile climb right out of the chute (White Bird) had something to do with that, although the grade was generally pretty forgiving and there was almost no traffic* and no one else around. In fact, at one point we heard a pack of coyotes howling up a storm.**

While taking a rest at the top of the climb in front of a ranch house, a woman came out and yelled something at us. At first I thought she was upset that we were blocking the driveway (which we certainly were). But then I heard her more clearly - she was asking us to come on into the kitchen if we wanted to refill our water containers. We declined, but thanked her anyway. It was simply another example of how nice people have been to us throughout this entire trip.

On the decent down to Grangeville we were chased by a group of 3 large dogs. One of them caught us and, teeth snarling, darn near ran under the front wheel while we were flying downhill. It scared us to the point that we stopped to avoid a collision. As soon as we did, the dogs lost interest in the chase and disappeared into the brush. They must have been guy dogs since they were only interested in the chase.
After a lunch stop in Grangeville we continued descending along twisty Hwy 13. At one point our GPS unit came loose and flew off the bike mount. Fortunately there was no traffic behind us and we were able to retrieve it without problem.***

We ended the descent in the canyon of the Clearwater River (Middle Fork). The river (the water is indeed very clear) flows into the Nez Perce indian reservation, which includes the town of Kooskia. We had intended to try to go on to Syringa or Lowell today, but Kooskia looked like a good place to spend the night and we need to load up on supplies here anyway (there is a 66-mile stretch coming up where there is no place to get food or water).

*Our route took us on old US95, which has been bypassed by new US95, so the only traffic consisted of a few local farmers.

**Shortly thereafter we passed a flock of sheep. Several of them looked straight at us as if to say "help us, there are bad guys (coyotes) out there!"

***Despite this incident I am pretty happy with the unit itself. But I am among the many rabid I Hate Garmin people (Garmin is the maker of the unit and the associated software). Garmin makes its software products so maddeningly difficult to use and restricts the use so much that it drives many of us crazy.
Garmin is a good example of how not to run a business - be extremely arrogant, make your products so difficult to use that all your customers must call for help and limit their application so that customers have to pay a new license fee every time they want to change anything.
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