Rainy Foggy Frosty Idaho

I LIT OUT of camp in the wee hours this morning, didn’t like where we were camped and was done with it. Rode an icy 100 miles along the foggy Payette River and made Boise for sunrise. Elevation’s going this way & that, banks of cold air then really cold air, ice on the windshield thaws, refreezes, thaws, refreezes, push left, push right, swinging south through the rocky Payette canyons we go. Open range all the way, watch for beeves in the fog…

I pushed the iron piggy 100 feet out of camp before hitting the starter but I’m sure I woke CCjon and Nestor on my way out. They’ll be here in Boise later today, CCjon needs to buy a kit to rebuild the hydraulic cylinder that engages his clutch. He’s losing fluid at an unsustainable rate.

Nestor’s got a developing problem, too: hard starting. He ran his bike low on oil. Way low. I’m betting his piston rings relaxed and he’s got low compression.

Last evening, at a semi-defunct sawmill off US 55, Idaho. The buildings had property in them, tools and such. Not really a going concern but not abandoned, either. Motion sensors kept turning the outdoor lights on. I said to CCjon, This is the kind of place where you get run out at gunpoint. Bad idea to be there on so many levels. Squatting on private land, fine, done it many times, but not behind buildings you can be accused of trying to break into.

CCjon was riding with pain yesterday, picked this spot and was done for the day. I slept with one eye open until 2:30 this morning, got up, made breakfast, packed up the ice-coated piggy and left.

Texted CCjon on the way out, Will look for you down around Boise.

So dig it, on Sunday we pull into a rest stop somewhere on the Columbia Plateau in Washington. A woman pulls up, her name is Linda, she asks whether we’re headed anywhere near Coeur d’Alene, which is about 150 miles northeast. If we are, would I do her a favor and drop off a set of keys?

They’re her grandson’s keys. She had driven his car while visiting, forgot all about it, left for home with his keys in her purse.

Linda tells me her son rides a Harley, and that all Harley riders are good guys, so when she saw the Harley-Davidson name on my gas tank…

I’m thinking, well yeah we’re all good guys. As long as you don’t count the bad ones.

So that night, Linda’s daughter, Libby, and Libby’s son, Trent (he’s in high school, plays football and baseball) meet us at a Wendy’s near their home and we hand off the keys. And since my phone’s acting wiffy, Linda is kind enough to hail the bride on facebook to say she had seen me earlier in the day and I was NDY, not dead yet, the sleep-aid text I send home at day’s end whenever I’m on the road.

On our way to Idaho we stop in northeast Washington to visit Tom, a sidecar-pilot pal of CCjon’s

Nestor snapped this pic of me with Tom’s S&S-powered ’96 FLH.

Better angle on the sidecar.

CCjon and Tom with the yakkety-yak over coffee…

Seen in Tom’s kitchen…

Next to this… I’m surprised Tom hasn’t crossed out two and written three.

That night, Sunday, we camped in Rathdrum, Idaho, after dropping off the car keys to Libby and Trent. Our hosts were Billie and Dave, who ride sidecars and trikes, also friends of CCjon’s.

Billie on a 1942 Harley Servi-Car she restored.

Dig the revolutionary look on Nestor. Whenever he wears that hat I call him Che.

Billie’s proud of her three-wheeler’s before & after photos

Personally, I don’t really care to go 120mph on a Servi-Car.

Battery on the Mac Air is almost out, so I’ll close with a few pics from yesterday’s ride.

Hmm…I messed up in resizing them… did something wrong…

Tony DePaul, August 28, 2018, Boise, Idaho, USA