16 days & almost 3000 miles / 4828 kilometers
visiting historic towns & eating biscuits & gravy
in Washington state, Idaho, Montana & Oregon

I hadn't been on an extended motorcycle trip since 2020, when we went to Baja, California, Mexico and the world got COVID. I had planned on going with Stefan to Colorado in 2021, but my dog was injured and I had to stay home (Lucinda the dog is fine now, BTW). We'd done a day-long motorcycle rides on the weekends and had done one motorcycle weekend camping trip, but I was climbing the walls: I needed a real adventure. I needed real time away from home and a real body and soul reset.

This trip, we stayed close to home and decided to concentrate on historic, abandoned towns - ghost towns - most new to us, but at least one we've seen before, many years ago, and wanted to see again. We had really low expectations for the trip - and it turned into one of our very best.

Highlights:

• This bed.
• Thirteen Mile Trailhead, because it also had campsites.
• Molson historic site in Washington state, right at the Canadian border.
• Ovando, Montana.
• Return to Garnet Ghost town in Montana.
• Return to Highway 12 / Lolo Pass in Idaho.
• Washington state road 129 and Oregon state road 3 from Clarkston, Washington to Enterprise (wow!).
• Crystal Crane Hot Springs (outside of Burns, Oregon).
• Stefan saving someone's life (yes, really).
• Return to the Alvord desert.
• Rediscovering how wonderful US395 North of Burns is to ride!

I was so happy to hit the road for this trip at 10:30 a.m. on Friday - that's so much better than noon or later, which we somehow end up doing way too often. Well, I wasn't happy to leave Lucinda the dog... I never am... but I had worked hard for two weeks to get everything ready as much as possible so that we weren't frantically rushing to get out of here well past lunch time on our first day.

We had to ride on the Interstate highways through Portland, but it wasn't anywhere near as horrible as I expected - it was much lighter traffic for Labor Day Weekend Friday than I expected. We even saw a motorcycle traveler on a Versys, all loaded down, taking the exit to go south (happy riding, dude!). Then we got off Interstate 5 north of Vancouver, Washington, at Woodland, on Washington state road 503, and took it all the way to Cougar for our first stop. I really like the restaurant at the Lone Fir Resort and wanted to have lunch there. A KTM rider came to the restaurant soon after our food arrived and it turned out he had lived in Germany for most of his childhood - he was excited to speak German with Stefan. I was so happy to see that the resort had survived the Covid pandemic. We ate outside, something I now always prefer when going to a restaurant.

No, I have never taken one of the resort's "Bigfoot Tours", nor have I seen Big Foot. But this little bus was the first of MANY sightings on this trip of attempts by towns and businesses to exploit the belief in Sasquatch.

It was so nice to be back in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We used to come to this national forest often when we lived on the South Eastern side of the Portland metro area and it was so much easier to get to. Now, we have to go through downtown Portland traffic to get there and it's rarely felt worth it. Which is a shame, because it's one of our favorite places to ride my motorcycle and to camp. Being here again felt like coming home. Plus, we are fascinated by Gifford Pinchot, the man - if you haven't read The Big Burn, you really need to. It's a book I can't stop thinking about, particularly when we're riding through forests.

We pushed on from Cougar and turned off onto Washington state road 131, and I began to smell smoke. It wouldn't be the last time on this trip.

We decided to go up the Windy Ridge road to view Mount St. Helens on this first day out and about. After all, we had a campsite waiting for us that we'd reserved back in July, we had lots of time to spare and were in no rush, right?

The smoke was much thicker as we continued going up in altitude, though it stayed high up in the sky for the most part. The weather was getting hot and I began to wonder if the ride to Windy Ridge would really be worth it, both because of the temperature and the smoke-obstructed views. We had been on this road more than a decade ago and I remember it being quite good. Welp, once we reached it and began to ride it, I found out that, now, it's not in good shape at all: there are jaw-jolting dips and bumps and a lot of pot holes, especially on the way down, and many of those holes would be trip-enders for anyone who hit them. Many of the gaps in the road are hard to see because of overgrown brush. If you go, pay attention, on the way up, to where the worst spots are, and as much as possible, on the way down, stay to the left. I hit my motorcycle skid plate HARD on a bump going up, a bump that wasn't at all visible in what looked like smooth asphalt. I hit so hard I thought I'd just busted my bike.

I didn't really enjoy this visit to Windy Ridge. I was way too hot and the haze was awful. But I was surprised later to see our pictures from the spot and they were much better than what we actually saw, like this one of Mt. St. Helens.

We stopped in Randle for gas, and Stefan's bike dropped at the gas station just as he finished fueling up. I was horrified. He handled it very calmly - I was surprised, because every drop does at least a bit of damage to a bike, and his panniers, up to that point, had been absolutely pristine. I thought he'd be way more upset. Now that the bike has dropped, his panniers are slightly bent (though it's very hard to see those imperfections) and, therefore, no longer water proof (such is the fate of any metal pannier once you drop the bike - the fate of a plastic pannier is worse). The parking in front of the gas pump wasn't as flat as he'd thought when he parked. For the rest of the trip, we were extra cautious every time we parked, especially when getting gas. I was so afraid this was some sort of horrible harbinger for the rest of the trip.

Across from the gas station in Randle was a huge encampment of RVs. These housed individuals and families there to gather mushrooms and huckleberries and maybe other fruit, and there were big tents set up where the people could sell what they gathered. I think there was a tent handing out meals as well. What a hard life. Most of the pickers were Latino, but I also noticed a family that looked Asian. The next time you eat something with mushrooms gathered from Washington state or Oregon, or drink a huckleberry something, think about the very low-paid folks who worked their asses off in the Pacific Northwest to pick that for ya - it's not an easy life.

There were motorcycles everywhere that day. I've never seen so many motorcycles out on roads before, except when we were coming down the Alaska Highway in British Columbia in 2015 and saw so many bikes going up. All of them this time were headed in different directions. About half were dual sports, loaded down with gear. About half with Harley Davidson motorcycles, not-so-loaded down with gear. And we continued to see a LOT of motorcyclists out traveling for this entire trip - especially KLRs!

It was getting late and we were past the time I wanted for us to head to our campsite at Blue Lake Creek Campground, which I had reserved back in July, knowing that trying to get an on-demand campsite on the Friday of Labor Day weekend would be impossible. It was so nice to know, all day, that we had a reserved campsite waiting for us at the end of it. Imagine our shock to find that Forest Road 23 was closed for culvert repair. We were furious! They have our email address and this apparently was a planned road closure - it would have been easy to tell us beforehand. In fact, I received a reminder email from recreation.gov just three days before departure, and that email reiterated that, from Randle, to get to the campground, we were supposed to take Forest Road 23. With light fading, Stefan looked for the detour on his phone: we were expected to go down Forest Road 25, get to Trout Lake, then head to the campsite - a FOUR-HOUR DRIVE?!?

We went up and down a few other roads, finding that every rough camping spot was full. Some were filled with RVs, who had obviously staked out their spots the day or even two days before. We were eventually heading up Forest Road 29. We were gently going up, the road was quite good, but the only space that someone could camp on was filled with two RVs, some tents and a lot of motorcycles. Everything else was too steep or overgrown. The road barely had a shoulder. Stefan left me at an intersection and continued up the road looking for something, anything, where we could pitch a tent safely for the night.

All he could find was a large, flat space right next to the road, with a dramatic drop off on one side after the flat part and, on the other side of the road, a steep cliff. We just had no choice - it was our only option. I was really worried about a truck coming along and plowing through out tent, with us in it. Happily, that did not happen. In fact, there was no traffic whatsoever until about 8 the next morning, when we were up and packing. It turned out to be a really nice, quiet, beautiful place.

I was also once again really grateful for Stefan's metal panniers on our motorcycles, which once again became our seats and table, as they have on so many trips before. My bike has dropped a couple of times with mine on them, and my panniers are the prototypes, and, still, they have held up and are our seats when we don't have a picnic table to use while camping. You might think it's no big deal not to have a picnic table, but it's really hard to unpack the bike and change out of your bike clothes when you don't have anything to sit on or lean on except the ground - you end up getting everything filthy very quickly. The panniers are available from his web site, BTW.

In the sliver of sky we could see above the road, we saw a night sky we love so much, one where the stars are clear and numerous - which was surprising to see, given how much smoke had been in the air, and was probably still there. Except for the worry of traffic and the frustration at not being told the road was closed and losing the money we paid for the reservations, it was, in fact, a lovely night. I'm so glad we're prepared for such.

I woke up before Stefan, I think just after the sun had risen (though I couldn't see it). I sat in the tent, listening to something in the brush and trees above the cliff across the road. It/they made a LOT of noise, a combination of things dropping and some sort of animal sound, and then silence. And then the sound would begin again. Birds? Herd of deer? Bear? Herd of bear? No idea. I listened for a while, looked intently into the morning twilight to see if I could see anything (I never did), then went back to sleep. When I woke up, about an hour later, Stefan was standing outside the tent, listening intently to the same noise, which had never stopped. It did stop the more we talked.

A pickup truck came up the road as we were packing up. It was gone for about 30 minutes, then came back down. I know now, as I write this travelogue, that the road is a dead end, as are all the roads that branch off of it, so I have no idea where he went. He didn't stop - just barely waved and rolled on.

We didn't make coffee - we just packed up and headed back down Forest Road 29, and before we reached the end, passed five boys on dirt bikes heading up the road - SO glad we left before they came buzzing by our campsite!

We returned to Randle, intending to head to Packwood for breakfast, but I saw a restaurant open on the corner and pulled into the parking lot. We snagged the last available booth at the time. I ordered biscuits and gravy, and that became something I did repeatedly on the trip. I am stunned at how popular this Southern dish is in the Pacific Northwest. The food was either really good or we were REALLY hungry. We also met two guys there on dual sports, one an old KLR, one a brand new one. We also saw bikers going through the intersection during our entire breakfast, and more KLRs passing by! 

We headed west to Packwood and learned why there seemed to be even more campers than even for a holiday weekend: Packwood was having a massive flea market, something they do every Memorial Day weekend as well. It looked like there were a hundred of vendors lining the main street and even some of the side streets. We never would have gotten near any of the restaurants - parking isn't allowed downtown during the market. People parked far away, paying $10 to do so, and walked along the road to get downtown. It was very nice to eventually get passed the town and back onto beautiful backroads.

We were headed to Ardenvoir, to stay with friends. We had decided just that morning to take them up on their offer for us to stay there - it was the Saturday of Labor Day, and we really didn't want to camp rough again, given how difficult it had been to find a place. After this night, sure, I would be willing to chance it and camp rough again, because we would be much more likely to find a great place, but not on a holiday weekend.

Needing a break from riding after a while, I headed off highway 12 to stop at a historical marker on Rimrock Lake. The marker was for John and Adella Russell, who came to this area and farmed and ranched 160 acres in the river basin. The marker doesn't talk about the settlements there before white people got there. Sadly, the stopping point is filled with trash. Happily, someone put a pair of pink readers on the historical marker sign, and they were stronger than the non-prescription reading glasses I had brought, and they looked fabulous on me, so I took them. We'd passed a sign saying there was "fire activity" on the pass, but we never saw it.

We turned off to US Highway 97 north and tried to stop at Liberty, which was supposed to be our first historic town stop, but it didn't look like it was really supposed to be a stop, despite the brown sign announcing it as such. It's an occupied town with very few historic buildings, and what there are are still occupied. There is a campground there, but it didn't look like anything historic was in it. After traveling about a quarter of a mile down the road, we turned around and went back to the highway and pushed on to take National Forest Road 7320 / Old Blewett road in Wenatchee National Forest. We took it back in 2017 on our way to Levenworth and had really enjoyed it. It's just 11 miles long and it's very narrow. It's paved the whole way, but there are a lot of potholes. It felt so much shorter than what we remembered. I was very glad not to meet any cars or trucks on the sharper turns.

We were eventually on Alt US Highway 97, which we've been on before, years ago. This time, we stopped in the parking lot of Rocky Reach Dam, which dams up the Columbia River, for another rest. It was SO hot and I didn't want to get dehydrated nor overheated.

My hair... ugh. I didn't get it colored before our trip, and I had cut it myself - damn you, COVID-19 pandemic. There was zero moisture in the air this day and, indeed, for most of the trip, so all of my natural curl was gone: it looked like an Emo Phillips haircut. Plus, as you can see from photos, I've gained almost all of the weight back that I worked so hard to lose before the pandemic, and being at this heavier weight makes riding a motorcycle more difficult for a whole range of reasons, and makes the heat even more miserable for me.

We turned off for Ardenvoir, riding along the Entiat River, and stopped at a store that straddles both Downtown and Uptown Ardenvoir, to buy beer and wine - didn't want to show up at our friends' house empty handed. It was the first time, but not the last time, I realized just how right wing rural Washington state is - just like Oregon, just like everywhere in the USA that's rural, sadly. The flags, the t-shirts - so much anger, so much racism, so much denial of reality. I know that the stickers on my panniers scream "LEFT WINGER FEMINIST WHO HAS A PASSPORT", among other things. I don't think they will get us killed, but I do worry about someone vandalizing the bikes as a result. So far, it's resulted in people not talking to us - they start walking up, they see the stickers, they walk away. That's fine with me.

What a luxury our second night accommodations were! Our friends fed us incredibly well and gave us a bed upstairs that was heavenly: we could look out at the gorgeous stars that night and I woke up to the sound of the chattering and howls of coyotes all over the canyon. The road outside was silent, but I could hear the sound of the Entiat River as I drifted off to sleep.

Such a lovely, special home.

A shower gave me my curl back!

Our hosts once again fed us and, as they prepared breakfast, played music by the Chieftains, one of our very favorites. We have hosted so many traveling motorcyclists at our house - it was weird and really nice to be hosted ourselves.

We said goodbye to our friends after thanking them profusely and rode on, intending to go farther North, including visiting Coulee Damn. We stopped in the city of Lake Chelan for gas and met yet another KLR rider. They were everywhere! Apparently Labor Day weekend is take-your-KLR-out-on-a-roadtrip weekend. They asked if we were doing the BDR - something we were asked repeatedly on this trip by pretty much every dual sport rider we met. In case you are wondering: I have no intention of doing a Backcountry Discovery Route. They seem, to me, to be routes that are meant just to be difficult, just to test your technical skills. I appreciate that people are looking for that. I'm not. I love to try a dirt or gravel road that's within my abilities, that even takes me a bit to the edge of my abilities (but not the edge of a cliff), so long as there is a ghost town or gorgeous vista or great campground to experience along the way, and that isn't going to take me more than three hours in a day to complete. That limits me - and so be it.

The sign on Washington state road 17 said the Fort Okanogan Interpretive Center was open, so I took it, having no idea what it was but, hey, something historic to see! But it wasn't open. That is a big pet peeve of mine, when something says open and it is, in fact, closed. I hate when I've slowed down or parked and found out some place I wanted to eat at or see is closed, despite all the "open" signs. Apparently Fort Okanogan is a site that talks about the tribes that make up the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. It was our only opportunity on the entire trip to visit a tribally-managed site. We are always looking for that on a trip but rarely find it - or if we find it, it's closed. We stopped on the entrance road so I could complain to the air and so we could both drink some water. I saw an array of satellite dishes in the distance - but they don't seem to be on Google satellite view of the area. Hmmmm.

The land was oh-so-dry and arid, unless there was a river and farmers using such for irrigation along the river banks. And we were heating up more and more. It wasn't oppressive heat - we've ridden in far worse heat. But riding in hot weather is exhausting.

At last, I saw a vista drive for the Grand Coulee Dam - Crown Point Vista - and we took it. Apparently it's a part of Steamboat Rock State Park, which everyone raves about online as really beautiful, but this was NOT really beautiful - it was dingy and run down and sad. I think it's far from the actual campsite for the state park. This Soviet-style structure was built in the 1950s and is meant to be where you stand to look out at the Grand Coulee Dam - which is, indeed, GRAND. The site is worth going to for a really spectacular view of the dam, but be prepared for a lot of trash. The dirt and gravel parking lot is massive. There is a pit toilet near the start of the lot. The view of the dam is scenic, but the viewpoint - not so much.

Seeing the two very green cities at the base of the dam in an area that's almost a desert is surreal.

The Grand Coulee Dam is an engineering marvel. It is SO big! It is so very, very large. It's worth your time to look it up online and read about its history. And maybe it's worth it to do the officia tour, but we just didn't feel like it.

We were hungry and needed gas, so we decided to head down into the cities below the dam to look for food and fuel. The town below is filled with very lovely vintage homes with lush, green lawns. But no restaurants or other services. We went across the bridge to the other side, which didn't look nearly so green or lush, and I stopped at the first restaurant I saw, a Mexican restaurant. We sat eating mediocre Mexican food and enjoying the air conditioning and watching the dam out the window of our booth. I kept thinking about what a disaster it would be if the damn burst. Has that happened in any disaster movies? Send me a YouTube link to the scene if so. 

I'm disappointed in myself for not getting a photo of myself next to the GIANT FDR HEAD at the dam. But I didn't see it in time to make the turn and didn't feel like turning around. As a result, I have no photo of me next to the GIANT FDR HEAD.

There are some web sites that you will find if you do such searches that list what the authors of those sites consider ghost towns, as well as articles written by various folks about ghost towns. I read them all and try to sift through the fluff and figure out what's really worth seeing/visiting. It's not always easy to use such research: some of the articles plagiarize other articles, changing this or that to make the town sound most interesting, and often, the author has never been to the town at all, they just created the site as clickbait. I have a list of ghost towns we've visited, btw, with accurate descriptions - no fluff!

The area of Govan, Washington, contrary to what I'd read online, isn't really a ghost town - there are still some people living there, and the grain elevator looks like it's still an active business. The community that was Govan is, indeed, long gone, including most of the buildings. Still, it was worth visiting to see inside and around the historic schoolhouse, which must have been beautiful when it first opened, and an abandoned house with a stove that I so, so need, so I can build my dream house around it. We even saw some deer around the abandoned house - they were too far away for a good photo.

The schoolhouse still has shingles with the vibrant red paint on them, that must have been all over before fading in the sun. It made me sad - to see what was obviously such a beautiful building abandoned and soon to fall completely apart. This wasn't a quickly-built structure: it was built to be both practical and beautiful. What a shame it couldn't be re-purposed.

We headed back on US Highway 2 and then north on Washington state route 21, going through Wilbur but not stopping for hamburgers there this time, to cross the Columbia River on the Keller Ferry (free!). The ride down to the ferry, BTW, is suddenly twisty, with a steep decline, and really beautiful. We were hoping there would be a campground on the other side of the river, not too far from where we would dock. It was Sunday evening, and there is a state park right at the ferry dock before we boarded, but I just didn't feel like a state park: they are expensive and full of RVs running their generators. And I wasn't needing a shower yet, as I'd just had one. Stefan's map showed a campground a few miles after we reached the other side of the river, so we were hopeful.

There was another biker on the ferry, with a very expensive, new BMW. He had no interest in talking to us. Such people always make me feel stupid when I try to talk to them - their expression and body language make it clear I am REALLY bothering them. I certainly don't want to bother anyone. I just like to ask people where they are from and where they are going. Or where they've been. I've gotten some great road and site recommendations as a result. It seems like the newer and more expensive the bike, the more I get this reaction. Oh well.

We went off the ferry, traveled up the road, and came to what was listed on our paper map as a campground. The sign says its a trailhead and never mentions any campsite, 13 Mile Trailhead does have four or so campsites, each with a fire ring and picnic table. It also has a pit toilet and, just like most of the time with other vault toilets, it was clean and well stocked with toilet paper. Thank you, National Forest Service! It's just off highway 21 at the boundary of the Colville Indian Reservation. It's officially in the Colville National Forest and the nearest town is Republic, Washington. It was my second favorite campsite of the entire trip. It's in a canyon and the cars from the nearby highway die down as soon as the ferry stops running for the day. It has a bear-proof trashcan, and we made sure all of our food, food prep tools, toiletries and anything else smelly were in our panniers.

My bike was sounding and feeling funky. We had taken a ride the weekend before our trip and I felt this kind of "thunk thunk" every few seconds, as though I was about to start running out of gas. We were both afraid it would kill our trip - something we were both needing, badly. Stefan did a number of things to the bike in the following days and I crowd sourced the problem on a KLR forum on Reddit, to give him even more ideas to try. Nothing fixed the issue. He rode the bike repeatedly and said it was running fine and we could still do the trip. So... I went with that and hoped my motorcycle would hold up. But that "thunk thunk" feeling continued for the entire trip, and later turned into a sound. The only time I didn't notice it was when we were on a gravel road. The bike did make it through the entire trip and got me home just fine, but I was really holding my breath that last day. But more on that much later...

Stefan felt that our chains were too loose, so he did some maintenance on them. And then we had a perfect night at the campsite, drinking way too much beer and wine. Well, maybe that was just me. I think I heated up a can of something. I don't remember. I just felt so relaxed and happy. It was a magical night. The stars were gorgeous. I went to sleep very tipsy and feeling like all was right with the world.

Happy Labor Day! Workers of the world, unite!

I had so loved Thirteen Mile Trailhead as a campground - I wish sites like this were prolific! It put me in a very happy mood for the day. We made coffee and I used my Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk in a pouch in my coffee for the first time. OMG... it is now mandatory for my camping trips. I have tried powdered creamer, and it's just nothing. Instant coffee is something I drink only when I'm motorcycle camping, and it needs a lot of help for me to drink it. And I need to drink coffee in the morning. Someone in the comments section of Outdoors or Backpacker magazine on Facebook suggested sweetened condensed milk as a great substitution for flavored creamer and THAT PERSON HAS CHANGED MY LIFE. When I went to the grocery looking for it, I thought I would be getting a can or two - never dreamed there would be a pouch! Perfect for travel!

For breakfast, I had peanut butter out of an individual serving container - we didn't have enough water for me to have oatmeal and to clean the dishes.

We headed on to the town of Republic to get gas, and while there, Stefan rechecked his motorcycle chain tension - and found that his chain had NOT been as loose as he thought in the campground and it was now MUCH too tight. I was stunned at how quickly he took off his bike seat, redid the chain tension and then put it all back together. Then we headed on through Republic, which actually was kind of quaint.

Below is a screen capture of our route that day, so you can see where we went and how we went , because it's hard to explain in narrative form. The little tent marked 03 is Thirteen Mile Trailhead as a campground. Yes, as you see from this map, we went through Wauconda. I kept yelling "Wakanda Forever" in my helmet. Spoiler alert: Wauconda is NOTHING like Wakanda.

My pre-trip research for abandoned historic towns - ghost towns - to visit on this trip turned up Bodie, Washington. Imagine my surprise to find out it was named after the same person as the iconic Bodie, California, the best-preserved ghost town in the USA and my favorite abandoned historic towns: the original claim holder was William S. Bodey "whose eponym was changed as his tent city was underway, as an anonymous sign painter assumed the spelling of Bodie would wear better with time." We almost didn't find Bodie, Washington - Stefan had marked it on his GPS but it wasn't at that point when we came to it, and we thought maybe it wasn't there at all. It turned out to be about half a mile further down the road, with a sign and a fair number of buildings.

We parked on the side of the road next to the sign for the remnants of the town and began to explore. I was happy that Stefan seemed to be really enjoying himself at the site. My thoughts are always the same when I visit a ghost town or abandoned building: this used to be a town. People lived and worked here. It was built with a lot of hope and an intention that it would last. It's not built to fail. Did the people who built this and lived here ever think this would happen to it?

We continued North, heading to historic Molson in Okanogan County and seeing along the way lots of old houses and buildings just like what we had seen in Bodie, some abandoned, but some still in use as storage or even living spaces. One or two had a sign marking that it was a historic site, but with no further information, outside of it, but we didn't stop at all of them since, at many, there just wasn't much to see. After dodging a few cows on the road, we were nearing Molson, and we saw a really huge old building - it looked like it might have been a hotel - out in the middle of a field. I didn't see a "no trespassing" sign and the gate was wide opened, so in we went. We started taking photos and walking around - and then heard the voice of someone from across the street, telling us it was private property. And he was PISSED. Knowing that many rural people in the USA are armed and will just start shooting, we all but ran to our motorcycles and left - and unfortunately, the fabulous pink readers that I had found earlier, that I had hanging on my collar, must have fallen off somewhere in his field. I missed them greatly for the rest of the trip... I had brought Costco cheap reading glasses with me (no way I'm bringing my expensive prescription glasses), and they were fine for when I needed to read a menu or whatever but the pink readers were FABULOUS.

Onward to historic Molson, an open-air museum of many historic buildings and artifacts - tractors, tools, typewriters, a printing machine, household items, and so much more. I believe the buildings and items were all moved here, to this one spot, from various places around the area. I was enchanted by it all. It's like a mini-Bodie, California. I'm so, so glad it was open, officially, on Labor Day! It's so, so far North and far from everything, I'm not surprised at the few number of visitors, but I thought it was so worth it.

Molson included what I think is a planting machine, and it had the word Kentucky on it. Attached to it is a guide that says "Grain Sowing Tables, Internal feed drills", for the planting of wheat, barley, buckwheat, kaffir, corn, rye, flax, oats, beets, peas, navy beans, ensilage corn, kidney beans, canning peas and more.

My favorite thing in Old Molson was the bank. I've never seen such a well-preserved historic bank! Stefan didn't seem as impressed with it as me. I loved it! 

We skipped the Molson Schoolhouse Museum farther up the road - I'm sure it was interesting, but instead, we decided to take the road that continued North and then veered West and turned to gravel, so we could see the now completely abandoned site where once stood tiny Sidley, British Columbia. This Canadian town was very friendly with the citizens of Molson and was also a border crossing into Canada once upon a time. These tires seem to have been left by the Canadian or USA border patrol. I may or may not have violated the US-Canadian border there. Not much to see there, true, but just the idea was fun. And the road had some lovely vistas.

This ride on this day, and several others on this trips, so well represents why I wanted a dual sport motorcycle: not to do the BDR, not to do crazy difficult dirt and gravel roads, but to be able to go for a few, even several miles, see some site somewhere I really want to see or camp somewhere a bit obscure. I love my KLR so much for that reason. I know that most street bikes could do what I've done, but a dual sport makes it SO much easier - and I used to ride a Honda Nighthawk, I know what I'm talking about.

It was only 3 p.m. when we finished our visits to Old Molson and Sidley, British Columbia, but I was DONE. So done. What a huge full day. We had passed two lovely lakes on the way, Beth Lake and Lake Beaver, in Colville National Forest, and one of them had a campsite. I suggested we call it an early evening and camp there. And so we did.

There was no where to get beer or wine for the evening, but that was okay - we really were too tired to drink. The day wasn't over though: underwear needed washed again. I walked up and down the driveway for our loop of the campsite to get water from the only water spigot we could find, maybe the only one in the entire campground. I think I made that walk five times. I used our collapsable sinks to haul the water for washing and cooking. I kept saying, "I'm like a pioneer woman!" But the reality is that it still wasn't as long a walk to water as what my rural great-grandmothers did as children, probably.

I'm so glad Stefan brings the clothes line. It's one of those things a lot of other adventure motorcyclists, bicyclists and hikers say you don't really need, that it's easy to improvise, that it's just another thing that adds weight to your bike. We disagree. If you camp, you need it.

I continued to reach deep and gather some energy so I could cook a good supper, since all we'd had for lunch was snack bars and water: I heated up Tasty Bite Turmeric Ghee Rice and and Tasty Bite Vegetable Tikka Masala, both out of a pouch. I added a lot of extra curry and chili powder. It is amazing how good it tasted after such a long day, and in such an isolated area, and after not eating much all day. The Tasty Bite brand has really improved our camping supper experiences - we use them on both motorcycle trips and when car/trailer camping.

So, there's why Tasty Bite brand and/or Eagle Brand need to sponsor our motorcycle trips. Just cover our fuel costs!!

And I continued to fight off my extreme tiredness and after initially saying not, I decided we should, in fact, walk to one of the lakes and have a closer look, and then walk through the entire empty campground, just to see how it was laid out.

There was just one other campsite occupied on this Labor Day - and we were as far apart as we could be (we'd chosen a site near the water spigot). The pit toilet was also nearby. It was like glamping! Well, at least for us.

I was dead to the world by nightfall. Geesh but I was tired. I was asleep before 8:30 that night. But I did see beautiful stars the times I got up to pee.

It was time to retire the t-shirt I had been wearing the entire trip so far, the one with Harrison Ford as Han Solo on the back and change to something clean. I don't try to hand wash t-shirts on trips because it's impossible to get them clean that way, at least when I try it, and they don't dry overnight. I take enough t-shirts to change every three to five days, as needed. 

On this trip, I brought a both practical and sentimental tool. My maternal grandmother died in late 2019, a few months after I had visited her for the last time. A lot of her stuff ended up at my mother's, and I went back to Kentucky in June to clean some things out of her house and found a few of these little pocket knives from my grandmother's former workplace, Gamco Products. I now take one on the motorcycle with me. You can see my entire motorcycle pack list here, BTW.

We had coffee and our breakfast (I don't remember what we had) at the campsite, then moved on, now heading mostly East. We drove through Curlew, which is described somewhere as an historic town, a kind of ghost town, but it's not at all - people live there and there aren't that many historic buildings to admire. Cool bridge though.

One of our stops during the day was at Sherman Pass Scenic Byway, because it had a pit toilet and I needed such at that moment. At the stop, I found several Infowars stickers stuck on the back of a parking sign. I carefully peeled each off and threw the sh*t away in the pit toilet - that's what you do with crap, right, it goes in the pit toilet? I did the same throughout the trip. I love doing public service activities while traveling!

While riding on state highway 20 in Washington State, through Colville National Forest, I saw a sign on the side of the road for historic Camp Growden, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCCs). Being a total CCC fan girl, of course I stopped! I was in heaven - I LOVE all things CCC! Camp Growden was one of the largest CCC camps in the area and known as “Little America” because it housed enrollees from around the USA. CCC workers built roads, trails, camps, and buildings all over the USA, many of which are still in use today - your city or county probably has something built by the CCC back in the 1930s. I love the CCC!! Thank you, FDR!

What a shame some gun owning MAGA assholes had to shoot at one of the signs at the site - just like they do so many road signs. Gee, I wonder why I hate "lawful" gun owners so damn much? And what a shame that someone - probably also a MAGA asshole - stole or broke or otherwise vandalized the piece of stone that is supposed to be in the hands of this statue, as though he is laying the final piece in the wall.

I was now wearing my newest t-shirt, one that has a Coyotebroad design on it. I had worn it just once before, to the big outdoor overland expo in Redmond, Oregon earlier this year. I want to make some changes to the design for the next version of the shirt - it's so difficult to design online! There will be just one more, maybe two more t-shirts. I'm not going to sell them or anything, therefore I don't need more than a couple. I'd just like to be wearing my own "brand" in more travel photos. You may have noticed that I'm using coyotebroad.com more than coyotecommunications.com - I'm doing that because, as I work less and less, I want to start promoting my travelogues and travel advice more and more online. I doubt it will ever become a viable business; the market is just so saturated with travel bloggers and travel advice and influencers and what not. I don't really offer anything unique, except for my really detailed travelogues, which most folks don't do. I'll never have a following like ItchyBoots, mostly because I'm not willing to put in the time, and the quality of work, that she pours into telling about her travels (which is the industry standard, hands down) - plus, I'm just not that adorable!

At some point on our ride, I saw that Stefan wasn't behind me. I panicked. I pulled over to the side of the road where I thought it was safe, and waited. Did he have a flat tire? Had a deer run out in front of him? Was he okay? With every second, I got more and more nervous. Finally, I decided to count to 60 and, if he didn't show up, I would turn around and go see what had happened. But not long after I started counting, he showed up. Turns out he'd pulled over to take a photo of his Honda Africa Twin speedometer, which had turned to 160,000 kilometers - 100,000 miles.

There were so many, many Bible camps everywhere. We saw so many Bible camp compounds, or signs for such, on this day and on this entire trip. It was creepy. The ones we saw looked very well-kept - and, therefore, well funded, .I have a feeling what people are learning is far, far off the mainstream. These are the same as madrasas, yet the people that get upset about madrasas just ignore these - and send their kids to them. 

As happened frequently on this trip, we didn't have even an abstract plan that morning on where to stay that evening, and then had to scramble to find a place to camp suddenly before night fell. We ended up at Skookum Creek Campground, still in Washington state, very near Idaho border. This was our first experience with a campground managed by the Washington state Department of Natural Resources (it's NOT the same as a state park). DNR manages 80 campgrounds across the state and the only way to pay to be at one is to have a one-day or one-year Washington State Discover Pass - and you can only do that via your phone at the campsite (there's no way to pay otherwise). Good thing Stefan's phone worked! Also, none of the QR codes to pay work, because someone put the bolt to hold the sign up through the edge of the code. Really happy to see the sign recruiting volunteers to help at DNR-managed sites (which aren't just campgrounds).

The campground was fine, except for a lack of toilet paper in the pit toilet (UNACCEPTABLE). We were also on edge all evening because of the at least two sites that were occupied by people living in their cars (this is a growing issue at campgrounds, no matter how remote). We were really worried about bugs, given the nearby standing water in the meadow, but it was fine. There were signs everywhere saying "no campfires!" and we always adhere to that rule if it's in place.

Great view of the stars at night! Wish I hadn't been so tired and could have stayed up and watched them for a while.

And now a word from my husband:

 
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Index of resources for women travelers (how to get started, health & safety considerations, packing suggestions, transportation options, etc.
 
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transire benefaciendo: "to travel along while doing good." advice for those wanting to make their travel more than sight-seeing and shopping.
 
my adventures in Europe, Africa, as well as road trips in the USA.

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my adventures in Germany.
 
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