Saturday, July 20 2019
I left my house at 8am and headed to Tim’s (via US2, then 211) which is not far from Newport. We met up at the church at Dalkena, then headed up highway 20. We stopped at the first Heritage Marker for David Thompson, a British trader who was the first to navigate the Columbia from source to mouth in the very early 1800's. I’m very familiar with this area having spent a lot of my youth at Riverview Bible Camp, and also hunting deer in the area. 
We turned east at the Tiger Store and it’s here that the road gets fun. We climb elevation quickly topping 3000 feet as we head toward Beaver Lodge Resort. We stopped for a bit to see a friend of Tim’s who turned out to not be there. But Tim’s a retired teacher and we ran into former students of his. Further down the road is Crystal Falls, which we’ve stopped at before, but it’s pretty nice and worth stopping again. 
We continue on through Colville and Kettle Falls then we cross the Columbia and start looking for a place to stop for lunch. This being our first day, we both packed a lunch. We stopped at the 
Log Flume which was mostly deserted and ate our sandwiches. After lunch we started heading up toward Sherman Pass which sets our high elevation mark at 5,354 feet. I like riding up and down Sherman Pass because the road is nicely kept and has sweet turns. As we ride toward Republic we start to see a lot of riders, mostly BMWs and while stopped for a construction delay one guy asks if we’re going to the rally in Republic. I think he’s talking about the CMA Road and Trails thing that Rob Newman is organizing because it’s this same weekend. But instead it’s the BOA (BMW Owner’s Association) rally just outside of Republic. As we pass it, we continue to see other beemers heading that way. It’s supposedly a very good rally and not just for BMW owners. 
Our target this evening is Winthrop, but they’re having a blues festival and camping spots are hard to come by. We keep heading west eventually finding a single open spot at the Klipchuck Campground not far from Mazama. It was a nice spot and we heated up our dinners that we had prepared at home the night before. This day’s ride ended up being 298 miles which was about 30 miles further west than I had expected. But it turned out fine and tired from the riding, we called it a night before 10pm.
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.
