My brother Dave, who wasn't able to join us for the weekend decided to meet us at the border for the ride back, so as we headed down to meet at Oroville, he took off much earlier taking as quick a way as possible. After an uneventful crossing we got to Oroville and stopped at a downtown restaurant for breakfast. They were newly re-opened and understaffed. We got our food about 90 minutes after getting there. Dave met us at the restaurant before our food arrived. So while we ate, he told us about the "driving award" he received on his way up. It's always easy to go fast on a bike and he got caught on 395, so that darkened an otherwise nice ride up north.
John headed south at this point since that was the best route home for him, while Bill, Dave, and I decided to do a little experimenting and head due east on the road to Chesaw. It was pretty nice for awhile, but unknown to us, there were rebuilding a very long stretch of the road. At least half of the road leading to highway 21 was gravel - not too much fun. Eventually we got to 21 and headed south toward Republic where it t-bone's into 20. After that we headed off east over Sherman Pass which is another great road. We headed into Kettle Falls for lunch, but there wasn't much there. We went into a grocery store that had a little "organic" type restaurant where we got something to eat.
After that we headed down the west side of the lake and took the Inchelium ferry again. Headed south on 25 until we got to Hunters, then headed east toward Loon Lake. By that time we were pretty tired, so we just decided to take boring 395 on into town and home. Dave was sorry that he couldn't come all the way, but I ended up taking him and two others on this same route later.
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.
