Tuesday, August 18, Andrew drove up from Utah in his new car (a very dark blue 2016 Toyota Camry; it's nice).
Wednesday morning we loaded up the van and headed for northern Idaho. On the way, we stopped in McCall for lunch at the Pancake House.
We drove up through Riggins, then turned off onto state highway 12 before Lewiston, and took it and highway 3 through St. Maries to I-90, and from there to Wallace. It was long, but a nice drive through some pretty country. Andrew drove for about an hour. The full drive was about eight hours.
In Wallace we got settled into our place (more on that in another post), had dinner at an Italian place (The Blackboard), and relaxed.
The next morning (Thursday, August 20), we drove to Lookout Pass ski lodge, right on the Idaho-Montana border. We got checked in, got our bicycles, strapped a bike carrier to the back of the van, and loaded them up. (Yumiko brought her own bicycle, the other three of us rented.) From there, we drove about seven miles to the trailhead for the Trail of the Hiawatha.
It was cloudy and cool (and in fact rained on us a bit), and was cold and muddy in the 1.6 mile tunnel that's right at the start of the ride, so we put on jackets and rain ponchos, and started the trek.
The Trail of the Hiawatha is a bicycle path built on the roadbed of the railroad, so it's pretty flat. In fact, the route we rode was mostly downhill, at a fairly slight grade. There were lots of old trestles and tunnels.
Mostly, there was a lot of beautiful scenery.
The ride was mostly downhill, so it wasn't too hard.
We left around 9:00 in the morning, and got back to the AirBnB around 3:00. It was a pretty fun ride. We were tired and dirty when we were done.