I went to Idaho to ride with Mill.

[Brian A]

Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 23rd, I flew to Idaho to spend 3 days riding with Mill.

The 3 days far surpassed my expectations.

I will try to get back now-and-then over the next few days to do a proper ride report. Until then.....

Be jealous. Be very jealous.   ;)

[Brian A]

Back in late 2014 Mill announced he would be moving to Boise, Idaho. Truth be known, it wasn't a surprise to me. He is a very good friend and works in the same field I do (repairing diagnostic imaging equipment). I guess I figured it a privilege at the time to have had a number of conversations with him as he and we weighed the pros and cons of moving. I reckon it was not a decision to be made lightly and I was honored to have him think enough to share his process with me. Moving can be a big deal.

Not just moving, but moving to Boise, Idaho. That's a long way from Montgomery, Alabama.

Mill, being Mill, did his research and with an eye on a new adventure and knowing the seemingly unlimited offroad riding available in Idaho, he made the decision to make the move.

While I knew I would miss seeing him and riding with one of my good riding buddies, I believed it was a good thing for him - and told him so on several occasions. I'm not inclined to believe my opinion was a determining factor, but I am glad I can look back and think about his decision with a smile on my face.

And now I can think about it with an even bigger smile on my face.

In November 2014 we had a "Farewell Mill" day at Minooka. There was a hare scramble race that day and a bunch of us camped that night. Mill, again being Mill, went on a late night ride. He went solo.

I could have gone with him.

I didn't go with him.

I will always regret that decision. For no other reason than I have wished many times I had ridden with him that night. One last ride before he left. But I didn't.

But what I did do was tell Mill that I would visit Idaho. And we would ride there. It wasn't just an idle comment made in passing. The kind of thing you say, like "Yeah man, I'll come see you someday."  And then days become weeks and weeks become months and months become years, and then "someday" never comes. I said it, believing in my heart I would make good on the promise. I think that is how I viewed it: A promise. Even though I don't ever remember saying "I promise", I felt it in my heart.

I knew if I had moved to Idaho, I would be very happy to have one of my buddies come visit and ride with me. So, yeah, to me, I had made a promise and I had designs on making good on it.

Mill and I have talked many times since his move and earlier this year talk shifted gears to a more serious discussion about me planning a trip. He stumbled upon a Craigslist ad for a guy in Boise who rents Dualsport bikes.

Yeah! That's what I'm talking about!

A few phone calls and everything was arranged. I would have a KLR 650 ready and waiting. Mill would be on "El Burro", aka "DRonkey", his DR650 (one of the best bikes in the world).

I had my airline ticket bought a few months ago and then the only thing to do was wait.

And.... spend a lot of time looking at Google Earth and Garmin maps. Mill had decided to let me "plan my own ride" and that was a cool decision. By design, I waited to the last few days to dig into it all. I wanted the maps and such to be fresh on my mind. And so it was. I mapped out tracks for 3 days, looking at Google street maps and topo maps, and Garmin maps, with a focus on what looked to be good riding through a variety of good areas. By a combination of effort, blind luck and decisions made on the fly, we hit the jackpot.

And the jackpot machine jammed and kept on spitting out rewards.

Three days.

586 miles of dualsport riding.

Three days and 586 of the best miles I have ever spent on a dualsport bike.

I will go ahead and say it: next to Ecuador, I think Idaho ranks second in my book. At worst, it ties with Colorado for second.

But all-in-all, I think Idaho topped Colorado.



Me and Mill. November 2014.

The morning after I didn't ride with him the night before.

I was to make up for it in September 2015.

[jrobinson]

As always, a great report.

[Chuck A.]

Glad you made the trip. Memories like that stay with you.

[Brian A]

With all my riding gear and some clean underwear and socks crammed in my suitcase and misc stuff in my backpack, and my helmet in a helmet bag, I headed for the airport Wednesday afternoon.

My flight was to leave at 2:45 and I was scheduled for an 11:45 pm arrival in Boise after connections in Atlanta and Minneapolis, Mn. Mill had arranged ahead of time to pick up my rental bike while I was flying to Boise so all we would have to do would be strap our bags on the bikes and hit the road.

My flight out of Atlanta had a mechanical delay, putting us about 30 minutes behind the time when we should have pushed back from the gate. This spelled trouble as I already had a close connection in Minneapolis. We were on a 757 from ATL to MSP and you board/exit those planes about 1/3 of the way back. My seat was THE closest seat to the door. When it opened at the gate in Minneapolis, I was first man out and made good time on the loonnggg walk to the departure gate. There were 7 others on the flight going to Boise and I reasoned that the flight we were to board would very likely terminate in Boise (which it did), so with no connection to make, they would delay departure a few minutes for us AND MY SUITCASE FULL OF RIDING GEAR to make the connection.

All of which took place. I sat down in my seat on the flight to Boise and a few minutes later I heard luggage being loaded below. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing me and my stuff would be in Boise on time.


Before leaving Bham I was sitting there wasting time when I looked at the seat where I had sat my backpack and helmet. I chuckled and took a cheesy cellphone pic and sent it to Mulley. It reminded me of the pic I took a year ago while we were sitting in the Atlanta airport (near the big flying ear of corn) waiting for our flight to Quito.

I was reminded how fortunate I am. Blessed beyond measure I would say.

[Brian A]

In Boise I collected my suitcase from the big metal snail that crawls around and around in a circle with suitcases and boxes and stuff riding on its back. Outside in passenger pickup I called Mill on the cellphone. He was about 5 minutes from being there.

Mill rolled up and we tossed the suitcase in the back hatch and my helmet and backpack in the back seat and then it was a 15 minute ride to his house.

At his place we got our stuff pretty much arranged to load on the bikes the next morning and hit the sack around 1:30.

I slept on his couch. It was "lights out" kind of sleep.

The next morning, before I was awake, I heard some sound. Some strange sound. I was now 1/2 awake, or maybe just 1/3 awake, and I was trying to sort through things my ears were funneling to my brain. It took a minute but I figured out what it was.

It was The Police.

"Every Breath You Take" was playing kinda loud and a little distorted sounding on Mill's clock radio.
It was his alarm... for whatever THAT was worth.

The song ended and the morning radio personality started blabbing about something.

I swung my feet off the couch and made my way to Mill's bedroom door.

"Mill......Hey Mill...."

uh.... yeah...

"You dead or just sound asleep? That thing has been blaring for 5 minutes."

He had just been asleep, but was now awake. At least somewhat.

We made coffee and had breakfast. Then we loaded our gear on the bikes and hit the road right at 10:00 am



My ride for the 3 days and Mill feeding El Burro before we left Boise.

[Ryanbroome]

Nail biting. Can't wait to read more!

[Brian A]

Huh? What the heck? What's with this gear shift lever on the KLR?
It's about 2 inches from the peg and angled down too much.

I literally could not get my boot under it to shift. So, we turned around after buying gas and rode back the 3 blocks to Mill's house. 5 minutes later the gear shift lever had been adjusted and we were on the road.

The ride out of Boise took us along the north edge of the metro area for a right turn, headed north on Hiway 16. We picked up Hiway 52 in Emmet and rode along the north edge of Black Canyon Reservoir. Next came a left turn on to Sweet Ola Hiway.

Side note - I am reminded now of the trip me and Nessler and Glenn and Lincoln made to Daytona Beach in spring of 2014. We set out with a plan. But, plans are subject to change and the more one can take changes in stride, the better, and more smoothly (i.e. less stressful) things generally go.


For you must realize, I had already found myself engrossed in sightseeing and had blown past a left turn and realized it a few miles on down the road. I pulled to the side and explained my blunder to Mill. But, I spent 1 minute looking at my Garmin map and saw there were other roads that would suffice in getting us to our destination.

So we had options: go back and turn on original planned road or go just ahead and turn on a different road. The decision making process went something like this - as best I can recall....

Brian: "We can go up here and turn left and take a different route to McCall. 'Zat OK with you?"

Mill: "Yeah."

And that is how we found ourselves on the road that was taking us to Ola.  It wasn't necessarily with purpose that we were headed to Ola. Ola just happened to be on the road we were (now) riding, so by default, we were headed to Ola.

I think it was the first of many decisions made on-the-fly whereby we would be "Making our own good luck".

According to the interweb, Ola was established in July 1822 as a Post Office. There didn't seem to be much more in Ola in September 2015. Urban sprawl and rush hour traffic is not a problem.

We pulled to the side of the road in Ola. Had we stopped 100 yards earlier or 100 yards later, we'd have pretty much missed Ola.

So while there isn't much in Ola, what IS there is a cafe: The Ola Inn Cafe. And that is where we decided to eat lunch.





It is an old building with uneven wood floors and other traits that let you know it has been there for quite a long while.

A husband and wife were working the cafe. Very friendly folks.
Two others beside Mill and I were there for lunch.

I ordered a hamburger - with all the trimmings - and it was incredible. Hand formed patty on a toasted bun. Best I could tell it had been cooked on a hot grill or in an iron skillet. I told Mill - and I was serious - I didn't want to finish eating it because it was so good. Oh man that was a good hamburger. And good fries too.




I forget what Mill had, but whatever it was, I remember he enjoyed it.

For desert I had apple crisp with vanilla ice cream and Mill had homemade bread pudding with vanilla ice cream. The apple crisp was good but I think his bread pudding might be the best I have ever tasted.

All this awesome grub at this little cafe in the middle-of-nowhere Ola, Idaho. I had told Mill that I didn't want to spend a lot of time riding slow, difficult trails. I want to cover a lot of miles and see a lot of Idaho. I wanted to do what Mulley and I had done in Ecuador. Not just ride motorcycles, but EXPERIENCE things along the ride.

We were off to a good start.




And, in keeping with our already established willingness to go with the flow and make new plans along the way, we drug out a map and looked at options for dirt Forest Service Roads that would avoid some of the asphalt that lay ahead.





We made some notes of road numbers on a piece of paper, said "Thanks" again for the hospitality and great food (and I joked with the nice lady that Mill and I didn't have "an accent", SHE had the accent!). We left a good tip and got our gear on and hit the road.

It had been a wonderful stop. The kind of thing you get to experience when you get out and see things other than Exit signs, on ramps and off ramps, and overpasses.

Thanks Ola. Nice meeting you. Hope to see you again someday.

[Brian A]

We rode out of Ola, which took about 5 seconds to accomplish, headed northeast. About 1/4 mile out of town we turned right and left the asphalt.

Most of the rest of the day would be dirt.

The riding was good as was the scenery.

It was neat because there were plenty of good views, even though we were not riding through real rugged, high mountains.

Side note: I learned something about mountain ranges on this trip and in my reading once I got back home. The one big thing I learned is: There are a LOT of mountain ranges.

I tend to think of The Rocky Mountains as describing all the mountains in, well.... The Rocky Mountains. I had no idea how many individual ranges make up all that we know as The Rocky Mountains.  It's sort of like New York City. That's the name of the big place. But when you get inside NYC, there are many, many individual neighborhoods, each with its own name and boundaries, even if there is some bleed-over and the boundaries are not perfectly defined lines. That's the best comparison I can come up with to describe what it is like in the mountains in Idaho.

I can't say for certain but I think we rode in and around Seven Devils range and The West Mountains range. There is a big flat valley, and some smaller ones as well, that lie between the ranges (whichever those ranges actually happen to be) and we rode across those valleys. It was neat because we would be up in the mountains and look out across a valley to see more mountains in the distance. Then our ride would take us across the valley and up and across those mountains. It was really pretty and was a different kind of riding than what I had experienced in Colorado or in The Smokey Mountains.

There were farms and small communities - just clusters of a few houses mostly - and lots of open land.

Here's an example. This was taken while we were at elevation, but riding down out of one range. You can see another range in the distance. There is a big valley between the two.




And here is another pic taken about 2/3 of the way across that valley.



And here is a pic of Mill near a farm in that same valley.



I share this pic because it looks strange to me. It looks like the KLR is way small (or I am way big). I don't know why but it looks like the human/motorcycle proportion is all messed up. At least it does to me.

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So we crossed the big valley and rode through more mountains. All the while, enjoying everything. It was a nice ride on nice dirt roads. Sometimes winding back and forth in the mountains and sometimes poker straight across the valley.

Every mile was a pleasure.

On we rode. Our next stop would be Council, Idaho.

[ka4pse]

Anxiously awaiting more....  8)

[lazeebum]

As usual Brian, I am enjoying your ride report. 

[RubyRider]

Tell us more.......................beautiful pics so far.

[Brian A]

Thanks fellas!


The scenery and the riding continued to be the same for most of the rest of the afternoon. Dirt roads and valleys and mountains and the occasional small town.

We did take 1 or 2 brief sidetracks to hit a few miles of easy to moderate single track over the course of the day.

Our ride took us to the edge of the small town of Cambridge. It is there we stopped for this pic.

At the intersection of Bain and Mill, Cambridge, Idaho.




And on we rode.

About 15 miles or so further into the day we rolled into Council. It was a neat little town. According to the internet, 1.03 sq miles with a population of 839 (as of 2010 census). Pretty much the same population as the 1960 census. I guess not many people want to leave and not many people want to move there.

We stopped to buy gas and have a snack.

After buying gas we rolled our bikes to the edge of the parking lot and sat there a few minutes, finishing off our snacks. Just a short distance down the road and on the opposite side of the road, the local middle school football team was practicing.

I watched them. Little kids running around doing football stuff while the coach blew his whistle. Not really any parents standing around watching and talking.

The sprinklers sprinkled the field while the kids practiced. That seemed kinda odd, but I guess it worked because the grass was really green.



I like seeing stuff like this. I asked Mill "Wonder what it's like to be a coach for the middle school team in Council, Idaho?" There wasn't another team in town to play. I guess they traveled to Cambridge and other little towns nearby.

I commented to Mill that I often think about how people live and work and play. To the coach and those kids (and presumably their parents) their efforts and the payoff (winning) was probably pretty important to them. Yet outside of a very small area, nobody else in the world even knows they, or Council, Idaho even exists. Heck, I'll bet 99.9999999999% of the people on earth have never heard of Council.

And a far, far fewer number have ever sat on a motorcycle and watched the middle school team practice.

But, on the flip side of the coin, they didn't know I existed and I'd bet a dollar to a penny, not one person in Council has ever heard of Moody, Al.

So, I guess we'll call it even.

I joked with Mill we ought to slow down near the fence as we rode off and yell "Quit football!!  Ride a motorcycle!!"

But, we didn't do that. We just put on our helmets and gloves, zipped our jackets, pulled out of the filling station lot, turned right and rode off.

We had hit asphalt before we got to Council and would stay on asphalt until we finished the day in McCall.

Just more boring stuff......

[Brian A]

McCall, Idaho. Now THERE is proper town!

Pretty swanky place. On the shore of Payette Lake. Lot's of small vacation cabin rental places and homes on the edge of the lake.  Lots of boats too. Power boats and sail boats.

From the interweb: Payette Lake is a 5,330 acre expanse of clean, glacial water at an elevation of about 5,000 feet in the mountains of Idaho. Over 10,000 years ago Payette Lake was carved out by a glacier 1,000 ft high, 2.5 miles wide and 8 miles long. At its deepest point the lake is 392 ft deep.

Interesting factoid: McCall is known for having the highest annual snowfall in Idaho. I did a quick bit of research and found: average annual snowfall = 135 inches.

For comparison, Buffalo New York averages 94 inches of snow per year. So, I guess McCall gets a LOT of snow.

We putted down the road and pulled over to decide where would spend the night. We both had camping gear but our first choice would be four walls and a roof. There was a state park nearby. Ponderosa State Park.

We pulled up their website on Mill's phone and it showed cabins for rent, with some available, so we rode to the state park. The office was closed and nobody around to take our money and give us a key. We were both a bit puzzled. It wasn't late. Maybe 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock.

Oh well. No cabin for us. We rode back into town and stopped at the Scandia Inn.
Pretty nice place.
Pretty good rates.
And that is where we would spend the night.

Across the street from The Scandia Inn was another hotel. And this was going on in the parking lot.



We unloaded our gear and changed clothes. We walked a block down the road and decided on dinner at Growler Pizza Grill. It was a nice little sports bar type grill. The food was a lot better than either of us had expected.

After dinner we plodded our fat bellies the block back to the hotel then flopped on the bed and watched some TV. Mill and I both laughed. The TV was an old CRT type that made a "thunk" sound when you turned it on and the high voltage power supply came on to make the electrons fly through the vacuum inside the CRT and splat against the phosphorescent coating on the inside of the thick glass.

It had been a fine first day. The scenery had been great and the riding too.
I had stuffed my belly with one of the best hamburgers I could remember, then stuffed it again with chili cheese fries and a Turkey Club at dinner.

Garmin says we rode 189 miles and reached a maximum elevation of 6,116 feet.

My eyelids were real heavy and I feel asleep pretty quickly, having no idea how much better tomorrow was going to be.

[Brian A]

One last thing for day one.

I'm not certain but I am pretty sure it is a pic of the inside of my Klim pants pocket.