Memorial Day Weekend, 2013
I really didn't think I'd be riding on any type of long ride until my work project was released and the original release date was May 25th - Memorial Day weekend. That meant that my weekend would be centered around being available to take care of any problems that came up. But due to circumstances beyond our control, we had a three week delay. So that means MY WEEKEND IS FREE!!
Sunday, May 26, 2012
So my brother Dave, Bill Motsenbocker and I put together a quick overnight trip north. Exactly where wasn't important, just head north decide as we ride where we go. So I packed up my stuff Saturday night and then we met for breakfast at Frank's Diner at 8:30am which was a great place to start. I have to add this: Dave was late. Call it karma, Murphy's Law - whatever - circumstances conspire to keep him from getting places on time. But he eventually got there and we had a nice breakfast.
We Left Frank's around 9:30am, stopped for some cash, then hit US 395 heading for the Loon Lake turn off. Highway 395 may be quick, but it's boring.
From the turn off we rode through Springdale to Hunters where we took a short break. The weather was cooperating by not being hot and not raining so it really was a great day to be riding. Getting back on the bikes, we turned north on State Route 25 and rode into Kettle Falls. Another short break and then we turned west on to 20 crossing Sherman Pass. This is another really great road when there's not much traffic. Nice sweeping turns and beautiful scenery. We rode into Republic and had a late lunch at Madonna's Bar & Grill.
After lunch we backtracked a few miles to get to SR21 and headed north through Curlew and crossed the border at Danville after topping off the gas tanks. The border crossing at Danville is a nice quiet little station with the always polite Canadian Officer. We bypassed Grand Forks by turning west on to TransCanada 3 and continued heading north until we started thinking about a place to camp. We saw a campground sign for Jewel Lake Resort, so we rode up to see what it was like. It's is about 6 or 8 klicks off of the highway and it looked like a great place to camp. Wanting to be thorough, we rode back out and past Greenwood and Midway to see if there was anything better.
There wasn't, so we headed back to Jewel Lake to camp. We stopped and talked with the caretaker and found that there was no one else there. Memorial Day is an American holiday so any Canadians camping were back at home getting ready for work the next day. So we had the place to ourselves. What a pleasure it was! The lake is a pretty little lake that at one time had a polution problem due to the Jewel-Denero gold mine from 100 years ago.
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.
