21 September 2010

Along the Salmon River

I have never been white-water rafting.  After riding along the Salmon River, it has become a must-do.  The river is wide and fast and goes through some incredible places where towering rock cliffs come straight up out of the water.  The only way to see those parts of the river is to take a boat 80 miles into the canyon and spend a week rafting back.  The parts we saw were still spectacular, but unfortunately it was rainy and the pictures are only so-so.  You can still get an idea, I hope...





This was near Riggins, where Hells Canyon begins.






This fruit stand had the best stuff in it!  We got some tomatoes and onions for our sammiches later, and we got some huckleberry honey.  YUM!  Huckleberries are big around here.  They are like blueberries, but smaller and better.  I also got a huckleberry sucker (a suckleberry) but I lost it.  :(
Look at those peaches!  A lot of people don't know this, I didn't, but there are a lot of peaches in this part of the country, and I believe them to be the best I've ever tasted.  Sorry Georgia!
They gave me the info on their fruit stand so I could put it on my blog, but I lost that too.  Sorry guys.  I lost the bag that had my sucker in it and your brochure.
I like Airstreams.  They are the coolest RVs.  We kept seeing this one over and over so I took a picture of it. I think they are kind of artsy or something, I don't know.  Anyway, later that night, when we arrived at our campsite in Pollock, the owners of this rig were our next door neighbors!  They told us about raft trips on the Salmon River - the woman was a tour guide!  What a great job that would be, right?
Ooo...This sign scared us so we went down the road to this place instead...
You'd never know it just walking in, but way in the back is an awesome sammich shop.  They have all kinds of good things to put on your made to order meal, even sprouts!  It was excellent.  Thanks to Alfred from SwiftwaterRV for telling us about it.  
It started to rain more which made this construction area a muddy mess.  All those cars had to wait for us to slowly pedal our way through the mush.
There sure has been a lot of road work on our trip.
"Ken, I think I have a flat tire!!!"
It finally happened!  On a rainy day, too!  I am a real cyclist now.  :)  Ken fixed it quickly and we got back on the road.  We ended the day in Pollock, an oasis for travelers in this area.  There was nothing around at all, no real town to speak of, and it would rain for two days.  It was a nice place to be stuck though.
Our soaking wet camp site by the river.
We slept in our tent and stayed cozy and dry, but in the mornings we headed here:



We worked on JenTiles...
And we blogged...  And since there was no phone service here, we also learned how to make calls over the internet.  I had a live chat session with Diane.  It was great to see her face but the connection was just too bad for us to talk very well.  Love you Diane!
We also did a lot of resting, which felt really really good.
What a good dog.  :)

1 comment:

  1. LOL! You were SO close to making it all the way without a flat!

    Back in the 90's when I was stationed in Spokane, WA, a friend and I took a jet ski boat ride up the Salmon River. It was a blast, but I would love to do it in a raft, someday. It would be like a rollercoaster on water!

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