Day 3 – July 4, 2010 (Sunday)
Start: Enterprise, OR
End: Moscow, ID
Mileage: 120 miles
Our Fourth of July began with a bang, as we awakened to the sound of gunshots rolling through town. Apparently, the locals don’t waste time getting right down to explody business on this noisiest of holidays, and a gun shooting competition was taking place that morning down at the fairgrounds.
The view from the hotel parking lot wasn't bad as parking lots go.
We found a small eatery and enjoyed a basic but hearty breakfast. On the way out of the building, we met a fellow moto-traveler who pulled in next to our parked bikes. Turns out he faced the same camping conundrum that we had the night before, only he happened to stop at a brewery — and they offered to let him camp there for the night!1
True to form, we departed town around 10am and headed directly north on Hwy 3. The scenery steadily improved as we left the fields surrounding Enterprise behind and climbed into the mountains making up the northern part of the Wallowa National Forest. Our first stop was the overlook at Joseph Canyon:
After the overlook, the terrain turned steadily drier until we hit the infamous Rattlesnake Grade. This road is FANTASTIC.
FANTASTIC! (Look closely up top and you'll see the road twisting, and twisting, and twisting...)
This part of Hwy 3 had miles, and miles, and miles of twisties, and was without a doubt one of the highlights of the trip.
The next 20 miles or so was mostly bland farmland on a high plateau. But once we reached the edge of the plateau, the road dropped through a technical set of twisties down into the Snake River canyon and Lewiston, ID.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat in town while Stacey took photos of her impressive bug killing skills.
After lunch, we headed for Hwy 95, which features an impressive climb out of the canyon but is really just the equivalent of a four-lane interstate for most of the way to Moscow, ID.
We spent the day with our friends in Moscow, seeing the sights around the area. Too late I realized I forgot to bring my camera, or I would have taken a few photos of the verdant green Palouse. This photo I stole from wikipedia will have to do:
The Palouse (photo source: Lynn Suckow, Wikipedia)
Everyone had to wake up early the next morning, so we hit the hay around 10pm only to have our sleep constantly interrupted by the noisy Mormon kids upstairs. Quiet, children!2
More to come…
- Note to self: find and remember this brewery! [↩]
- Who knew Mormons could be so wired without caffeine? [↩]
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I will make this part of my next trip. Wow!
I saw that this was part of your route, and I wondered what you thought of it. I’ve heard about this area from other journals/ride reports and have wanted to ride it. Don’t know if we’ll get the chance yet this summer or not.
Looks like a really fun ride through there. We went thru some of that country a number of years ago. I always had a vision that Oregon was all trees and mountains. We discovered that there are amazing canyons and lots of variety in scenery. Thanks fir the pictures.