Day 22. To Baker City, Oregon.

Once again we both slept like logs - it must be all the fresh air and exhilaration! Another cool morning when we left but another perfect day was forecast. We started out by climbing out of the river valley where the adjacent towns of Clarkston and Lewiston lie. I must say I wasn't quite prepared for the ascending, twisty, turny road before my morning coffee had kicked in!

 Tom's GPS showing the curves and hairpins! Please note - we were not off road.

 Before long we crossed into another new State.

Our first stop was at an overlook at Joseph Canyon. Chief Joseph was the leader of the Nez Perce - the same tribe who saved the Lewis and Clark expedition from almost certain death in the wilderness of the Bitterroot Mountains. Chief Joseph was a charismatic and noble leader of his tribe. The Nez Perce were told to relocate from their homelands and instead of doing so fled across the western sates towards Canada where they would find freedom. They were mercilessly pursued by the cavalry and ultimately Chief Joseph surrendered as his people were starving and freezing to death. They were just 40 miles from the Canadian border. Chief Joseph has figured prominently in our journey so far as we have encountered numerous references to him and his people. The Chief Joseph highway we rode in Wyoming retraced part of the route they took in their attempt to escape.

 Joseph Canyon

After more exhilarating riding we arrived at the small town of Enterprise where we found a lovely little coffee shop:

 The friendly owner of the coffee shop told us we had to go see "the lake"! So we made a short detour after the town of Joseph (as in Chief Joseph) to Lake Wallowa, it was well worth it.

We then resumed our planned route to ride the Hells Canyon scenic byway. Hells Canyon in Eastern Oregon is the deepest canyon in all of North America. In fact Joseph Canyon that we saw earlier is part of the same canyon. That was impressive so we were looking forward to seeing more. Unfortunately, the road deteriorated, as we were warned it would, but then we came across a sign for road works that entailed up to 60 minutes delay! At this point we cried Uncle and turned around, backtracked a bit and took another route to our destination for the night - Baker City. We did find another lovely spot for today's picnic.

Trip mileage: 227   Moving avg: 47mph   Moving time: 4:50