Staging our start
This trip had a staged start. I spent the week prior at a conference in Spokane while Bill worked from our rented digs. We’d parked Brave Horatio at my sister’s house in Mead and enjoyed visiting them from Friday evening to Sunday morning. (Hi Bridget and Dan!) We also had dinner with my nephew and his family on Wednesday. Hazel is 10-months old and quite a hoot.
Spokane toward Wallowa Lake
We left Spokane headed toward the Wallowa Mountains. Our route took us through three states by way of Lewiston, Clarkston, and Enterprise. There were vast fields of wildflowers all along our route. The rolling hills of the Paulouse was a tapestry of all shades of green interrupted by punches of chartreuse and yellow fields of canola (rapeseed). Wildflowers edged the road and fields. Beautiful.
We were surrounded by a swarm of bees when we stopped for gas in Lewiston. I love bee swarms. It’s invigorating to be in the middle of the swirl and the BUZZ. Swarms are loud. They quickly crossed the gas station and side road headed for some trees. Hope the found a great new home.
We didn’t take the Spiral Highway into Lewiston Idaho, though I kind of wish we had. Even without the spiral, the drop into Lewiston was spectacular as was the long climb up to the plateau out of Clarkston. Wildflower everywhere. That high plateau out of Lewiston is like being on top of the world.
Winding back down to the Grand Ronde from the plateau was spectacular too. We stopped to look at the roadside flowers and grasses and the river. Beautiful!
Elderberry, mock orange, penstemons, wild geranium, lupine, vetch, blanket flower, brown-eyed susan, wild rose, green false hellebore, mouse-on-a-stick, asters, and more and more.
We passed a café/tavern with a dozen motorcycles out front and headed back up to the flower-covered top of the world.
On the advice of Bill and Heather, we stopped at Terminal Gravity in Enterprise. So cute, so full. Such nice staff running so fast. Nice nachos!
Heading east to the Imnaha
We spread our maps on the table and narrowed down our campsite search area. Earlier we’d put stars on two areas of the map. There were several possible campgrounds along Lostine River Road west of Wallowa Lake and another bunch on forest service roads off Wallowa Mountain Loop southeast of the lake. There wasn’t a timely way to check out both. We opted for Wallowa Mountain Loop and ended up in maybe our best campsite ever.
Campsite 12 in Indian Crossing NFS campground off forest service road 3960 is spectacular. Indian Crossing is at the end of road 3960. Cross the bridge, take the first left, and follow it all the way to the loop at the end. Site 12 is on the river side of that little loop. A huge campsite right on the Imnaha River with forest, a small meadow, and a huge rock accessible from the other side of the loop. We placed Brave Horatio right up in there and watched the evening darken from our rocking chairs by the river.