Wallace, ID
Total Distance: 61.67 MilesRide Time: 3 hours 49 min
Avg. Speed: 16.1 mph
Max Speed: 45 mph
Bike: Today was a pretty awesome day! It started with an awesome pancake breakfast and by the time it was over it had warmed up a little, making it nice to ride. We jumped right on I-90 and headed toward Wallace. Most of the morning it was all down hill and along the way we kept seeing signs for 10,000 Silver $ truck stop. Thats actually what it was called and when we finally arrived at the exit we were curious enough to stop in. It ends up that way back when they used to still use silver dollars the owner of the bar stuck one into the bar. Everyone there that night did the same and soon it caught on. Now they have 44,000 silver dollars up on the wall and on the top of the bar. I got sucked into the tourist trap scheme and decided to put a silver dollar up for Sara and I, numbers 45,872 and 45,873. Our names will get engraved below them and will be on the wall for eternity. They said we can come back anytime and they will look up on the computer our coin and point to it with a laser pointer, sweet!!
We stopped for a quick lunch and were then off to Wallace. We had one pass which was pretty long and had about 6% grades, nothing we haven't seen before. At the top we crossed our final time zone as we crossed back into Idaho. It's crazy how telling people we are riding to Seattle no longer gets a rise out of them. We have to mention we started in Providence to get a reaction. The down hill was fast and beautiful, views like I haven't seen yet! Eventually we hooked up with a bike path that parallels the highway. It was amazing it is literally in between two huge mountain slopes both directly on either side.
Wallace is an amazing town, stuck in the middle of the mountains it's a very old mining town. After showers I went to a vintage arcade showroom and played old 5 cent slots. It was fun and I actually made three dollars in nickels. One of the dollars went to get popcorn out of an old popcorn machine that made it right there on the spot. After it was done my curiosity got ahold of me and I touched a thing sticking out the side to see what it did and it burnt my fingers really bad, that will be fun for the next few days. There are still two very functioning silver mines left. They have a cool tour that about 15 of us went on around 4 pm. It is a tour of Wallace and an old abandoned silver mine. It was pretty amazing, the tour guide was a miner for 28 years so he knew what he was talking about. Inside the mine it was 50ºF which was a nice relief from the 90º outside. They even had three of the many huge machines used for mining up and working. We had to plug our ears when they demonstrated each one. Toward the end they had a huge hole with a ladder going down that was an old shaft but it was filled with water. It went down about 600 feet and then to both sides about 1000 feet. I guess the water is so clean and pure that the EPA won't let them put it into the creek because it's too clean and it will kill the fish. Crazy! The tour was definitely worth the $4.50.
I guess thats enough for tonight, tomorrow should be another super easy day of only 50 miles!! Can't wait.
Build: We did a alternative presentation today because most of the people here saw it last year. So we just all told stories from the road that everyone really seemed to enjoy.
Ride on!
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posted by Todd Johnson @ 8:26 PM
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