Day Eight – Yakima WA to Lewiston ID
Miles: 360
Elapsed Time: 10:44
Another Hilton breakfast was in order today. The Garden Inn food is typically better than the Hampton, and that held true here. We gassed up on the way out of town and by 7:30 we were heading east on WA24. After about 50 miles we stopped at Vernita Park which was mostly just a rest stop on the Columbia River. Not much to look at but the landscape was pretty desolate for the first couple of hundred plus miles. It was mostly farmland and we saw many workers in the field harvesting the crops. We saw many apple orchards and cherry crops. The road was a little hilly and there were a few twists here and there to keep it interesting. Once we reached Kahlotus we headed south on WA263 and onto Devil's Canyon Road. This road is a 9 mile trek down to the Snake River. The road was built in 1961 and gave the rail line a run for its money and by 1987 the rail line had fallen into disuse. The road was paved in 1991 and the rail line became a trail. We didn't see a soul in the entire loop. The road was very straight and 500 feet down to the river in that 9 mile span. We pulled off the road to view the Lower Monumental Dam which was built in 1969. Nothing great to see but it was nice to stop in the mid-morning to stretch our legs. We continued on the Burr Canyon Road paralleling the Snake River before turning onto the Pasco-Kahlotus Road and ultimately back to Kahlotus completing the big loop. We split from WA260 and onto WA261 toward our next destination which was Palouse Falls. WA216 travels through the Eastern Washington desert which many would dispute that classification but it certainly looks like a desert to me. We stopped at Palouse Falls for a peek at these 200 ft falls. The falls are on the Palouse River just upstream of the confluence with the Snake River. The Falls are very dramatic I think because the view point is looking down and the source is hidden form view. The Falls look like they come right out of the rock and drop the 200 feet into a round pool of water.
Next up was Lyons Park which is at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse Rivers. The 6 mile stretch to the park was very steep, dropping more than 800 feet in that span. There were also some nice twists as we hit a pretty good clip coming down. Once in the park there wasn't all that much to see. We stopped for a little bit and took some pics but not much here. We crossed over the Lyons Ferry Bridge and continued following the Snake River before branching off to follow the Tucannon River with 600 foot cliffs on either side. We connected with US12 for s short period of time before crossing back over the Snake on WA 127 headed towards Colfax. The scenery and landscape had not changed much at all since we left Yakima. This is not the most direct route to Lewiston but we needed to add some miles to the day so we took a less than direct route. In that effort we took Wawawai Road down to the Snake River dropping 1,800+ft in just over 7 miles and began riding right on the river as we progressed toward Clarkston WA. Big cliffs were on our left and the river on our right. It was warm riding but very enjoyable. Before long we were in Clarkston on the opposite side of the Snake River where we began the ride up the Old Spiral Highway. This was our second time up the speedway, I mean highway, and it did not disappoint. My last ride up the highway was on my old bike so it was even more thrilling this time. Jim's first time up the highway left him with a smile on his face that was not easily disappearing.
When we rode the highway in 2012 it had recently been paved but it didn't look like much had been done in 5 years. It was still in good conditioned but obviously not as good as 2012. We stopped at the top and took pics before moving on to Moscow since we had some extra time today. We had planned to go to Moscow and stop at one of the Breweries there. Our top two picks were both closed so we settled on Rants and Raves Brewery. It didn't look like much from the outside but it was really nice on the inside and the owner stopped at our table to welcome us. There wasn't much of a crowd at that time of the afternoon but we liked the beer and ordered some wings that were really good. We'll never know if the other two spots would have been better but this was a good spot. Back down to Lewiston we ran into rain, so it was not the most enjoyable ride to the hotel but it was not a downpour either. We checked into our hotel and cleaned up before heading to Zany Graze for dinner. The website made this place look great but we were very unimpressed. We were there later in the evening after the rush, but they were out of some of the beers we wanted to try, and the food was mediocre at best while the service wasn't even to that level. Anyway, back at the hotel we were back into our normal routine.
