After a not-so-good night's sleep in Dayton, WA's cool old hotel I had a bagel and some lame espresso and hit the road at about 8am.
At the gas station in Pomeroy, WA I asked three people if the unmarked road into the Umatilla Forest was WA 128 and nobody knew. WA 128 looks to be a backway scenic shortcut to the WA 129 / OR 3 Rattlesnake. It wasn't on any maps they had either, not did it register on my GPS, and even the tracking map is unclear. I figured I'd ride it anyway, and it was a great 20 miles but then I ran into ice and snow and had to double back to WA 12. No problem.
Stopped at the cafe in Asotin for some brunch and met a chatty older couple on bicycles who kept the delayed, huge croissant with egg & cheese and pastry and better espresso from being boring.
Rode the Rattlesnake to the bottom, then back to the top and back down again. Awesome. If that road were 100 miles from home I'd ride it every sunny day. Didn't stop for ice cream at the bottom since that cheesy egg croissant and pastry was still weighing me down.
Detoured to the west towards Troy which turned out to be a great, empty paved road along the Grande Ronde river with a small section of dirt. Had a Coke in Troy while the hummingbirds sucked from the store's feeder above my head every two minutes. Sounded like bottle rockets whizzing by.
Doubled-back a mile and crossed the river, then dirt switchbacks for a couple of miles, then dirt, then old empty pavement to OR3 headed towards Enterprise. Fueled-up in Enterprise where I forgot their stupid rule where their guy runs the gas machine.
Blasted through Joseph to Wallowa Lake which is still mostly closed for the season, then back to Joseph where I booked a room at a motel built by former, fellow New Englander turned Oscar-winning actor of long ago, Walter Brennan. Veggie calzone dinner at the pizza cafe two blocks away.
