A double U Turn – such a Dirty Shame

I was ready to go by 7.00 am but knew the Burgdorf shop wouldn’t be open to get some breakfast, pay and checkout for a while. Opening was 10.00 am, but Dannan said he’d be poking about early and would sort things out. There was a bit of rain on the roof last night, never a nice sound if you’re on a motorbike and I slept pretty poorly for the first time. I’d have been much more comfortable on my Exped in the tent than the soft and squishy mattress in Broken Wing. Broken Back it should have been called! 

It was cold again – about 5 degrees. At this elevation, they have frosts most mornings throughout summer and the fact there wasn’t one (Autumn is just about to start) was unusual. The springs stay open all year and from November the only way in is by snow mobile. It’s a popular place in winter. The pool is at a constant 98 to 101 fahrenheit and it looked and felt great with a mist rising off it. I got in the ‘hot pots’ yesterday. These feed the main pool and are 110 to 113 degrees. You can only stay in them a few minutes and I still ended up with head spins and heart palpitations when I stood up to get out.

It was a simple and easy run out of Burgdorf and through to Warren. This was an interesting little town with plenty of history. But, like everything else up here, it was deserted, not a soul to be seen. There were vehicles parked up and the houses were lived in, but it was a ghost town. Not sure if it’s the economy (Idaho is said to be one of the poorest States in the Union, although others later disagreed with this) or what it was, but it came across quite eerily.

It was a very long and steep run up to Elk summit – this is the highest point on the BDR at 8,670 feet or 2,642 metres. I didn’t handle it well I must say. It wasn’t that different to what I’d been experiencing, just a bit more of it. Lots of dry, tight, rocky, steep switchbacks. I must have just been having an off day – the hairpins got me and nearly came off a couple of times.

I made my first big navigational error of the trip around this time and ended up doing a Double U Turn. A double! Now, that’s as bad as a U Turn gets. I’d crested Elk Summit, the highest point on the BDR, and turned off the road at the top ‘just’ before the peak to look at the view. I rejoined the track 20 odd metres onwards for the ride down. I was definitely heading in the right direction, the road was pretty good and I was just cruising and enjoying making some decent time after the awkward ride getting up. There was quite a bit of glare and I glanced down at the GPS occasionally and could just make out the pink route line going forwards. All good. About 14 km on, just as I was coming to a turn-off, I pulled up to check my route properly and saw that the GPS was kindly suggesting I make a U Turn in 4 km. I looked back on the route I’d been taking and there were a few turn offs I’d gone past. It was hard to determine which of the multitude of roads that were showing I’d come down, so I assumed I’d simply missed a turn. I’d done it often enough, but generally picked it up pretty quickly. I kept going back and, as I hit turnoffs, instead of saying to take them, the GPS was still saying keep going the way I’d come. I returned to the Elk Summit peak (a bit unexpectedly as I thought I’d got further past it than I had) and said quite loudly to any one that wanted to hear (no one) that I wasn’t freaking going back down there (nor should I have had to) and what the hell was going on. I then realised that I hadn’t actually physically crossed the waypoint at the summit (I’d managed to ride around it) and the GPS was simply bringing me back to it, after which it then said to return the way I’d just come. It’s the one thing about the Zumo 590 that I hate. It insists on taking you to every way point and doesn’t automatically recalculate (as the 550 does) if you miss one. You can manually bypass them which is what I ‘should’ have worked out and done earlier. Pretty stupid actually – can only put it down to tiredness. So, back to where I started, with an hour and 28 km (that’s actually a lot in these mountains) that I wouldn’t have minded getting back. That won’t happen, of course.

After threading my way through some significant road works, I got into South Pine at about 2.30 pm and had the best chicken burger and fries at the Corner Grill and Brew House that I’ve ever had in my life. It turns out they double fried the fries! When I went in there it just smelt and looked right – nothing like we see in Oz at all, but it had that feel. I hadn’t eaten much over the last 24 hours and was ravenous. There were a pile of locals sitting in the verandah having a very raucous lunch which had to be a good sign. They made me welcome, as usual, regaling  me with stories and yarns. One had been to Australia as a 19 year old on a football tour and the team stayed at the Gold Coast. You can imagine some of the stories! A couple of beers later and having been advised of how many guns I should own and where the best strip joints in Idaho were, I was off. Unfortunately, the shop that sold gas was still closed. The boys made some phone calls and chased the proprietor up. I lost an hour waiting, but was away by 4.00 pm.

The fires have got a whole lot worse, smoke was everywhere and I knew I was going to have to detour away from the BDR. There was information posted at the turn off I wanted to take that clearly showed the closed areas and where I would have to go. I headed west to Cascade on some excellent twisty bitumen and then south down a reasonably major highway. It was late in the afternoon and was a nice cruisy run following the Payette River. This had major rapids all the way along it and, as I found out later, was a well regarded kayaking and rafting area. The views were great.

I pulled up up at the Dirty Shame Cafe and Saloon in Crouch to see where I’d best find a room. It was getting late and didn’t feel like setting up the tent in the dark. I was taken under Dave’s wing the minute I turned the bike off. He was the local carpenter, who thought that my trip was the best thing he’d ever heard of. High fives and bro shakes every 10 minutes. He was completely and utterly smashed when I got there and how he was still standing when I ultimately left 3 or 4 hours later I have no idea.

Everything in Crouch was fully booked, despite it being a tiny place, but they found me a room in a little motel a few kilometres out of town that was part of the Terrace Lakes Recreation Ranch. It was tiny, but spotless, costing the usual $55 for the night. After cleaning up, I got a lift back to the Dirty Shame, orderd a huge cheese, pepperoni and bacon pizza and settled in for the night. Lots of laughs with a German biker called Chris, plus Nikki the barmaid, Pete, another Dave, a couple of other locals and Jennifer who owned the breakfast cafe in town. We were going there in the morning, assuming Jen would be able to drag her sorry you know what down there by 6.00 am. She said that if we didn’t let her go, we wouldn’t get any. Nikki then stopped charging her for drinks – she stayed. They like their hard liquor in the US and Nikki was an expert at topping people up and helping them to punch on. I kept waiting for her to tell people that’d had enough and refuse to serve them, but it was the opposite. Tequila shots with every beer seemed to be mandatory. After not a lot to drink over the last 3 weeks and about 6 days of abstinence (except for lunch that day) it was pretty hard keeping up. They made sure I did though. Wooohooooo …. what a night!