I actually felt a bit bummed when my host informed me that the couple coming to rent the cabin next were indeed still coming… and that I wouldn’t be able to hang around a few more days after all. Dang!

Am I really a sedentary guy at heart who needs to have a fixed spot to anchor him, to provide him a sense of pseudo-permanency? There is much to be said for grasping onto something that provides at least the illusion of predictability, but am I really one of those who need that, too?

I pondered on it a bit, and I finally decided I’m not… But, I am prone to falling into habits, and of allowing inertia to lead me into routines and patterns… These are precisely among the many things about myself I’d discovered on my last great indefinite trek, and among the very things I’d focused on to not let happen. Yes, I can easily back-slide, and this experience is vivid proof!

While I was chatting with Napper on my new phone, I mentioned all of this to her. She chuckled and mused, quite accurately it turned out, that I’d snap right back as soon as I put the kickstand up and pulled away.

It actually didn’t even take that long. Before the last of my gear was secured aboard our girl, I could feel an irrepressible grin spreading across my face, and a growing eagerness ‘to get back out yonder’ welling up inside me… ‘An excited kid the night before Christmas’ image would be an appropriate analogy here…

But where to go next? The decision was made easier by the reality that the road out of there only went north and south… meaning the battle was already half won! But that directional limitation would only last for ten miles or so before other options would open up.

My host had asked me if I’d ever been to Enterprise, OR… a most scenic area with towering mountains surrounding a large valley with much farming and ranching activity. It did seem vaguely familiar to me, but I was unable to conjure up any specific recollection… OK, looked like I had a flex-plan option in play here…

My host had told me the most direct route to Enterprise would be to ride back up to Kooskia, then go west on US 12 through Lewiston, ID, cross the Snake River to Clarkston, WA, then head south into Oregon along the west side of Hells Canyon. All that did have a familiar ring to it! Yep, I’d done at least part of that very ride before a few years back…

He went on to say that was the quickest route to take, otherwise I’d have to ride south all the way to Cambridge, ID, before I could cross into Oregon… Obviously he wasn’t a biker, huh…? I don’t recall ever having ridden that particular route before, but since I definitely had taken the other route option previously, this decision suddenly became a no-brainer! And that, my friends, has made all the difference!!!

We rode south to Grangeville, and I pulled into a convenience store to inquire about a breakfast location… The pleasant gal behind the counter told me the ‘Hill Top Café’ was one of the three best, and that she’d go to the Hill Top. I did. My waitress was really nice… an older lady (but probably not as old as I) told me to sit anywhere…

The small tables were all full, but one large table with eight or ten chairs around it had but one older lady (she was older than I) seated at one end. I said I’d sit right there if that lady didn’t mind. She smiled and said, “I don’t bite.” I responded that it would be OK if she wanted to nibble just a bit… She smiled again and that was that.

A very short time later, an older guy wandered in and sat at our table, then another guy, then another. WOW! I had stumbled upon a ‘meeting’ of the local liars’ club! Every town has at least one, and this was the one for Grangeville.

All local retirees who meet for coffee, sometimes breakfast, nearly every day, at the same place and time. And I was front and center! They all seemed to be OK with my Blarney, too, as I laid it on when they offered up an ‘invitation’. We laughed, swapped stories, and had a delightful time… During all of that I managed to eat some eggs and bacon… I love it when serendipity jumps up and surprises me!!!

Dayum, y’all! This is some absolutely awesome country out here! Having lived all of my life in the southeast, and most of that in Florida, the contrast in scenery in these parts is simply mind-boggling… Which, of course, creates a problem for riders like yours truly… My mouth is usually wide open, and often my chin has dropped into my lap, thus making my mouth a giant bug scoop… and, unfortunately, it’s pretty efficient at that, too…

As amazing as that route is, it is also different from what we see in other parts of the west. There is no one type of ‘western scenery’, there are actually endless varieties of it, and to fully appreciate that, one has to ride through all of it… and then re-ride it periodically to remind yourself just how much it all can change even just going over a pass from one side of a mountain to the other. I’m earnestly working on that project even as I write this!

There are a couple of canyons and river gorges that comprise ‘Hells Canyon National Recreation Area’. We rode down the east side of the Salmon River (a tributary of the Snake River) Gorge on US 95 down to Cambridge where we would make the turn west to cross the Snake River and go into Oregon.

A really nice ride, ups and downs, sweepers left, sweepers right… up over low passes, down through scenic valleys. Few trees except along the rivers and streams, the hills are covered in Buffalo grass adding a golden hue to the landscape this time of year.

We stopped at the overlooks and read the signs that described the first battle, a skirmish really, and subsequent movement that began the Nez Perce War and necessitated their famous escape attempt.

The radical clash in cultures as a backdrop, the human tendencies in previous times produced some incredible stories of resistance, struggle, and sacrifice, but also vices like greed and callousness, plus attributes like vision, and ambition regarding the diametrically opposing views on the use of land and the structure of society. The record of our species throughout all of history is that we only rarely resolve such differences in a humane and satisfactory manner… this was not one of the success stories…

How could things have worked out differently? I suppose more deference and fairness could have been employed to smooth the transition, but the outcome was inevitable. Can you imagine the six plus billion humans on the planet today still trying to use nomadic tribal hunter-gather social structures and lifestyles? That couldn’t possibly work, so either population ‘attrition’ in a major way or profound social change and resource utilization overhauls were unavoidable.

The end of the mini-ice age combined, and coincided, with the increase in human population world-wide, really, but in Europe especially, and with that came huge social and economic pressures. There were the two dramatic set-backs of plague in Europe, but once those subsided, population growth really took an upward trajectory.

The outcome of that was the forced migration of large numbers of folks from areas with large human concentrations to other parts of the world where population was far less dense. Like most immigrants today, those folks, our ancestors, were escaping poverty, hopelessness, disease, war, and denial of political expression.

As those pressures followed the inexhaustible waves of immigrants pouring into eastern North America, expansion west became the viable relief mechanism… and, the pressure that had existed on the east coast intensified as compression of the western native people, and their land, increased… resulting in predictable friction.

No easy solutions and no long term vision for what was taking place, plus our collective national morality had not evolved to its present level, so all of these factors combined to guarantee undesirable outcomes. We didn’t know then what we know now, but then hindsight is always more accurate than foresight… One of the reasons our professors all appear to be so incredibly intelligent and far more brilliant than the leaders of the time were.

We arrived in Cambridge, found a motel, got a room, and then… An absolutely marvelous day in the saddle! No problems, smooth roads, light traffic, tolerable temps (once properly attired), hardly any clouds in the sky… No smoky bear or other LEO sightings… Man, it was so good, a thought darted across my thinker muscle… this day is definitely celebration worthy! Hmmmm….