Construction- Day 10 Syringa to Wilderness Gateway Camping

Day 10-July 29, 2009 – Syringa to Wilderness Gateway Campground, ID 35 miles:

We began our day with huckleberry pie for breakfast and ended the day with mouthwatering smores beside our first campfire of the trip. We rode parallel to the Clearwater River/Lochsa (changed around Lowell) and had about five construction zones to ride through during the day. Surprisingly, the construction may have worked to our advantage because though we did have times where several semis passed us consecutively, there were great stretches of road with peace and quiet and not a vehicle in sight. They are revamping the shoulders along Highway 12 so we had to ride inside the white line but people were courteous for the most part. In the A.M. we let Gregory play on the beach for quite a while and got a late start. Just one mile after the beach was Syringa Café. We hoped for breakfast but found the dreaded closed sign. I poked my head in and found they were in a meeting and opened at 11:00 for lunch. It was about 10:00 and they said they could offer us huckleberry pie and ice cream. Of course Mike and Gregory jumped at that! Mike dug my granola out of the packs and I asked for a glass of milk. When we discovered they had Internet we hung around and got signed up for warmshowers.org (a site for bicyclists to find a host for the night). We hope to find someone to stay with in Missoula, MT. When the clock struck 11:00 Mike decided it was time for lunch. They had a great selection of books and we hung around until almost 1:00. Amongst all of the construction zones we missed a whole group of adventure cyclists but did stop to chat with Lisa and Ted along side the road. As we entered our campground that evening (over a bridge and across the Lochsa) we ran into Rex from Kamiah, ID. He was fly-fishing and Gregory was enthralled with his poles (one magnetically mounted to the hood of his truck) and his fishing vest and waders. We ended up across from his site and he and his wife Paloma generously provided Gregory with the fixings for his first smores of the trip. I made a big batch of vegetable soup and we had a roaring fire with wood that was left in the site. Gregory was a happy boy. He finally got his campfire and smores to boot.