Whoever was leading needed to be watching carefully and warn the others behind that a sketchy area was ahead. But aside from that the scenery was beautiful, following the golden waters of the Clearwater River all the way. We stopped in Elk City for a picture at the Post Office, then turned around and headed back the way we came.
We stopped in Grangeville at the Palenque Mexican Restaurant for lunch, then before we left town, stopped to see the Mammoth. The display is a replica of the bones of a mammoth found in 1994 at Tolo Lake, about 4 miles due west of Grangeville.
After that we headed out to White Bird Pass. Back when this road was completed in 1915, it was the only north-south highway in Idaho. My parents took my sisters and I (Dave wasn't born yet) up the old twisty road in 1962 when we moved to Spokane from Monroe, Louisiana - in the winter. God protects naive southerners from crazy decisions. The new road wasn't completed until 1975. We would like to have taken the old road,
but Bill and Dan had ridden on it earlier in the summer and said there's a lot of loose gravel from a olack of maintenance so we just jetted down the new road.
We stopped at the White Bird Battlefield station mid-way down the grade. It's worth stopping at. From the elevated position and diagrams in the shaded enclosure you can really see how the battle developed. It was the beginning of another our country's shamefully bold stealing of territory from people that were there first. I love my country and am proud to be an American, but there are events that as Americans we must unflinchingly acknowledge.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
