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| Rip City, Bomber, Stephen (guest), Barry (guest), Grim, Duke and G-Man |
Looking out the garage door, the morning appeared to be bright, shiny and balmy. So Grim decided to forgo his usual packing job. A light jacket and vest seemed enough. So on the way.
The members and guests met at the appointed place albeit with Grim being tardy. Present: Bomber, G-Man, Grim, Rip City and Barry (guest). Duke and Stephen (guest) caught up with us in Challis later in the day. Absent: Krome, Smooth and Gundy.
Duke's son was testing for a new belt in Karate and the testing was not to start until noon. It is always interesting the new and imaginative excuses Duke continues to make up every year so he can sleep in on Run days.
As usual, Bomber had the TourPak full of treats and goodies and Rip City had the drug store.
After a short safety briefing, we headed out to Mountain Home. Grim realized quickly he had underdressed as he was freezing his "hair" off. A quick stop in Fairfield was needed to make a phone call to make sure Duke grabbed my jacket before he left town. Bomber gave Grim an extra jacket and that helped a lot.
Gladly, the temperature rose a bit as we approached Arco although we were rained on just a bit before rolling past the city limits.
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| Traditional Pickle's Place Club Photo |
We made our traditional stop at Pickle's Place in Arco for lunch. We found our table and Grim was chagrined to find the restaurant was out of their signature buffalo burgers. So Grim settled for a patti melt with an egg. Rip City had a cotton candy shake along with some chicken dish that was unusual. G-Man was disappointed they didn't have a shrimp melt but he carried on somehow.
We stopped at the local gas station after lunch and happened to cross paths with some folks driving their vintage cars to the Challis car show the next day. One gentleman was driving a 1955 Chevy 210 sedan. I tried to trade him straight across for the Road Glide but he wouldn't bite on the offer. Their were four cars in all including a 68ish Camaro and Chevelle. They took off ahead off us due to G-Man, as usual, being the last to get on his bike. At least he remembered to put on his helmet. More about that later.
The OMC members went on towards Mackey and came through one area where the highway was threatened to be overrun by water flooding. Very interesting.
As we entered the outskirts of Mackey, we caught up the to vintage cars. They rolled into town but turned left mid-town instead of rolling straight through. As we rolled by, their mission became clear. They were stopping at every "watering hole" on their way to Challis.
We continued on and enjoyed a headwind, instead of the usual blistering side wind, as we rolled past the reservoir and Mount Borah. It was a nice part of the ride especially rolling through the twisty canyon. We arrived at Challis Hot Springs where we checked in and got all the rooms straight.
We quickly hit the pool where we found the water to be delightfully warm. Rip City and Grim reinvented the wildly popular game of "catch the rock" but were unsuccessful in getting other Club members to join in. Grim's bruises disappeared after a couple of days.
We grudgingly exited the pool to get ready to go to town. We rolled into town and took over our usual table at the Tea Room. Grim hoped it as better than last year. It was. The ribeye steak was scrumptious. Grim guessed what "alfredo chicken" thing Rip City was going to order so Rip City ordered another Rip City type thing.
The Tea Room is only open until 8 p.m. so we were going to order for Duke and his guest if they did not show up by 7:30 p.m. Luckily, they rolled up at 7:20 p.m. They ordered the meal that Grim was going to order them anyway so all would have been good. Duke picked up the dessert tab and Grim's chocolate eclair was delightful.
The Club members and guests headed back to the Hot Springs and received special permission to stay in the pool after closing hours as long as we didn't get out of control and would lock the place up behind us. We did lock the place up behind us.
After a warm but peaceful night's sleep, we arose to a great breakfast put on by the staff. It was very difficult not to overeat. We finished up and headed out to get ready to start the ride.
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| Rip City's After Breakfast Nap |
The Club members headed out in the coolness of the morning and headed to Challis to the big car show. We actually got an early start due to the staff honoring our request for an earlier breakfast.
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| At the Challis Car Show |
We parked under a shade tree and wandered through the parks checking out all the vintage cars. They had come from far and wide and the placards on their windshields showed the actual mileage on how far they had traveled to be here. Grim had not seen that at a car show before. Pretty cool. It was a great little car show with friendly people and really nice vintage cars. A fun time.
After getting our noses full of rust, we headed down to Stanley. The route was the usual twisting zen experience. Very nice with most cars moving out of our way and very little construction hassle. The temperature was moderate, with a proper jacket, and the sun was healing.
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| Stanley, Idaho |
We stopped in Stanley to get gas for the antique motorcycle in the Club, nature breaks and ice cream. Stanley is always a nice stop as it sits right at the foot of the greatest mountains in the world.
The members saddled back up and we headed towards Banner Summit. As we got out of Stanley, we began to pass many bicyclists headed the opposite direction. Grim then remembered the Lyle Pearson 200, an annual bicycle race to Ketchum, was in progress. Singles, pairs and four person teams compete to race 200 miles between Boise and Ketchum. As we passed Banner Summit, a relay zone, there was a plethora of competitors and their support teams staged there. Pretty cool.
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| Lowman, Idaho |
The intrepid members rolled down into Lowman where the Sergeant-At-Arms decided we were stopping for lunch. We sat outside and ordered from the window just like "downtown". Grim had some great sun-brewed ice tea that hit the spot. Bomber ordered the biggest plate of Nachos this side of the Rio Grande. The huckleberry ice cream and cherry pie was delicious. Thanks for lunch, Duke ! As were were leaving, a game of darts broke out inside. The match quickly escalated to "dodge the dart" but no one was impaled. Rip City beat Grim soundly just as he did in the early "catch the rock" competition.
We gathered up our gear and began to get ready to leave. As we were firing up our bikes, another group of Harley riders pulled into the lot and were patiently waiting for us to vacate our spots as their is not a lot of parking at the Lodge. We rolled up to the exit and were poised to hit the road. G-Man, as usual, was the last to climb onto his bike and, again, forgot to put on his helmet leaving it on the ground. He kick-standed his bike, albeit on a hill, and went for his helmet. As the antique purple....er....blue beast skidded down the hill on it's kickstand, one of the waiting bikers grabbed Scarecrow....er...G-Man's helmet and he was able to get it on his noggin. Meanwhile, Grim had estimated he could get the entire group on the road before an approaching semi truck reached us. Duke believes Grim would have been correct had it not been for the helmet antics that ensued. At least no one was hurt, maimed or killed. A gang wreck was avoided.
The gang...er...club members decided to ride home via Idaho City. Although Grim was superstitious about the route, it was decided he needed to get over it. The route to Idaho City was very fun and nothing approaching the 15 year old previous gangs wrecks occurred. Rolling into Idaho City is was clear a human population explosion had erupted in Idaho City. We found out a 100 mile enduro dirt bike race was concluding with another 100 race coming up the following day.
After gassing up, we headed on down towards the Capital City. It was a nice sweeping ride and we flowed past Lucky Peak and into town. All in all, a nice leg of the journey.
We stopped at Gowen and Federal Way to say our goodbyes. Handshakes and hugs were exchanged but everyone was reticent to leave and we continued to talk and exchange friendly jibes and lies. Reluctantly we climbed onto our bikes and headed our respective directions towards our homes. What a great Run we had enjoyed.
Do those deer whistles really work?
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| Which way did they go, George, which way did they go? |
