July 5-7, 2017-Joseph Oregon

A couple of years ago we had trouble with our refrigerator when the weather was hot. Well, once again we are having issues.  This time the cooling unit bit the dust. And when that goes, you know it.  The ammonia smell about knocked us out!!  As we live in our motorhome we can't just take it down and leave it at a repair shop.  When it does go in, it means we are homeless. So we decided to take a 3 day street ride to give the shop time to do it's expensive magic.

After delivering the coach as they were opening, we headed back up to Idaho City to get the bikes and hit the road. In May we had tried to do the Forest Road 39 that runs between the Snake River above Hell's Canyon and the town of Joseph Oregon.   When I called the Forest Service to see if it was open the lady just laughed at me, saying it was snowing up there as we were speaking, so no it wasn't open.  It is now, we talked to 2 groups of friends that had come over it, so we had to go.

We left Idaho City going north on Highway 21 to Lowman, where we turned west to Banks on Hwy 55.  Then it was north again to McCall where we stopped for lunch. Then we continued on Hwy 55 to New Meadows where we went south on Hwy 95 to Cambridge.  The temperature reached 105 on the BMW readout. We had to stop at the Gateway Market on the way down to the Snake River for a cold drink. The good news is when you stop, you sweat. Once you start up again that makes your body's own air conditioner work. The it was down to the river where we crossed on the Brownlee Bridge. From there we went through Copperfield and headed toward Halfway. We then turned right onto FR 39.

 We took the 3 mile side road out to the Hell's Canyon Overlook. 

 Riding the fully loaded Versys took some getting used to when we first started off this morning.

 Wayne, getting educated above Hell's Canyon

 The flowers  are out!!

Picturesque Joseph Oregon

We spent the night on Wallowa Lake at the state park. It took a bit to get back in the habit of setting up camp and cooking dinner. In the morning we headed back out the way we came, but instead of turning on FR 39 this time we continued on to Imnaha. It's a wide spot on the road with a tavern right before the road turns to gravel. We then wandered through the farm lands until we popped back out on 39. We went back to Copperfield, but this time we crossed the river on that bridge and followed the river down to Klienschmidt Grade. This dirt route took us up to the top of the range where we connected with a paved road that took us into Council ID for lunch. Then after an aborted try to get over the West Mountains we hit the highway and headed back through McCall and reversed our track toward Idaho City.  We stopped in Garden Valley to pick up a sandwich and beer before hitting Hwy 21 back towards Idaho City.  As the motorhome was still at the shop, we spent the night at a Forest Service campground. Then in the morning we completed the route, changed clothes at the trailer, put up the gear and headed into town to pick up the coach.

If we have to be homeless (more than normal) camping on the bikes is a great way to do it!!!

Next we are headed to eastern Idaho to explore the area between I-15 and Wyoming.  None of our group has been there before so we will be in exploring mode.  How fun is that!!!!