Avery to Heyburn, the right way
We slept great in the Avery Hotel. We had plans to meet our shuttle at 4 PM so we had to leave around 10. I’ve grown to appreciate the times we are not tied to a schedule, but having a shuttle through the dangerous part of the ride is totally worth the inconvenience of a schedule.
Before we left we looked in a train museum and an old passenger car in Avery. One thing Page has helped us do better is to stop along the way to learn about the area and its history.
The ride to St Maries was the perfect temperature. We had enough cloud cover to keep the sun off but not so much as to bring rain. It was totally dry. The road follows the St Joe’s River the entire way. About 20 miles from St. Maries, we had lunch at a roadside cafe. Again, it was fun to slow down, talk, and enjoy each other’s company.
We had one other brief stop along the way so Vance could go jump in the St Joe River to cool off. As it is snow melt, that did the trick. Shortly after lunch we exited the nice paved road and rode on the rail-grade dirt road into St Maries. It was rough washboard. We did it to avoid traffic, but perhaps we should have stuck with the asphalt.
We made it to our shuttle meet-up point early. I had been able to share our location with our driver so he was there waiting for us with a trailer he had rigged up specifically to haul our bikes. We grabbed supplies at the nearby store and drove to Harrison. Our driver was a retired principal and told us stories of the area for the entire drive. While I had resisted the shuttle idea, now in hindsight I have to admit it was the right choice and worked out perfectly.
After unloading, just as we were beginning the next segment of our ride, we saw another recumbent tandem similar to ours (but made by a different company). I wish we had been able to talk to them but they were riding in the opposite direction.
We rode the Trail of Coeur d’Alenes from Harrison to Plummer so that we could say we did the entire trail by the end of Saturday’s ride to Mullan. On the way back to our campsite at Heyburn State Park we encountered a moose on the trail. Page had just been chased by an angry mother moose the week before in Alaska and knew to be wary of the awkward, lanky, but big animal. Eventually it moved far enough off trail for us to ride by.
The campsite wasn’t as pretty as the previous two sites we used at Heyburn, but it was good enough. We cleaned up, showered, ate dinner, and went to bed.
It was a great day of just under 70 miles of riding.
Here are some photos from our ride.
