None of the pictures came through with Marie's Day 58 post so I'll attempt to add them now.
Our first 24 miles we finishing the downhill run in the canyon next to the Lochsa River and then the Clearwater River. That's when we ran into the cancer-fundraising group, whose support drivers were kind enough to pump up our tires.
Here's the famous "lady at the grocery store in Stites". She said she's ready to retire and would like to sell the store. We each had 2 ice creams to fortify ourselves for the climb. She loves talking to the cyclists passing through. She had one cyclist who expected to be recognized because he came through every year for 18 years. (What person would do the same ride every year for 18 years?). Inventory was pretty thin.
When we headed out of town and up the climb, the skies got threatening.
That's rain falling, but not on us. Yet.
Hmm. Seems to be headed our way.
Time for rain suits.
I didn't take pictures of the deluge. We just sat in the ditch getting pelted with rain and then hail. We were only 1/4 mile from a barn but walking up a steep grade would have taken a while. Get soaked walking, get soaked huddling together; we were safer off the road.
Eventually it stopped and we resumed walking/riding. All around we could see spectacular weather going on.
About 12 miles from town it started really coming down.
On of these pieces dropped into my hand while I was taking the picture. With our helmets and rain suits, the hail was not painful- it was like hard rain. Obviously, had there been any shelter out there in the wheat fields, we would have taken it. We regretted passing up a barn maybe 1/2 mile before the hail started. It's hard to anticipate what the weather is likely to do, and we're always optimistic. At one point we sheltered in anticipation of getting wet but that rain passed us by.
We arrived at the award-winning Super 8 in Grangeville about 5:30. It was a long day even though we only went 47 miles.