May 27 Brownlee Dam into Idaho

Earliest arousal yet at 4:45 am (helps to be sleeping outside and a bit cold) and with no breakfast options, it's got to be>> Hit the road!. Along the Snake River for an hour in the cool morning air. No traffic at all. Took some fun shadow photos. [Riding early morn or at sundown gives opportunities to take photos, where the shadows recreate the stretchy mirror effect like in the circus. Good clean fun when your other options are pedalling or talking to your deaf dog.] Brownlee Dam rises mightily in front at the 10 mile point, and in so crossing the bridge over the Snake, I leave Oregon behind. I'm now getting quite hungry, but hear word of a cafe up ahead and close too. I gradually leave the water over a few windy miles along an ascending escarpment and turn SE, and the Gateway (to Hell's Canyon) Cafe materializes. Great breakfast, and even Brindil scores half a discarded omlette as she charms the hosts. (It's true, she has been scoring more free food than I so far. But the trip is young and at this point, she looks more pathetic than I. This will change)
As much as the double b'fast was triply tasty-great, hauling it all up the ensuing 3800' climb to Brownlee Summit was quadruply hard, and I lay on my sleeping bag for an hour on top til the little green men went away. Then I got out the trpt and (tried) to play some blues in C#, but all I got was some very odd looks from driver-bys, esp. the big equipment operators. [See, one of my little music projects for this trip is to learn to become more fluent in the remoter blues keys. Too hard to explain here if you are not in the know on this. Word to self, try this when not exhausted. And don't try to encultureate the local boyz too quickly.]
Downhill rules and we glide a full 10 miles (aka free miles) into Cambridge. The only thing I remember about this stretch was a half mile section where the road and air were alive with, get this... grasshoppers. They bounced off me like I had entered an asteroid field, and my tires could be heard doing squishes and squashes as we cut a swath thru them. Now, Dear Lord, today ye hath thrown at me 1)extreme heat, 2)steep hills and now 3)locusts. When cometh the hailstones and death to my firstborne blogsite???
Took a break under a watertank in a small park in hot, dusty Cambridge, that is til a local gentleman came up and politely told me that the sprinklers around me were due to come on in 20 minutes. Since the rest of the park was already under 2" of sprinkler water, I took this as the sign to hightail it. But I did re-establish cel phone contact with the outside world, so was feeling very secure in spite of the recent locust attack.
Only 13 miles more and I'm settled into the Elkhorn B&B near Mesa. This gorgeous loghome retreat sets neatly atop a small hill with expansive views in all directions and the owner, Debra Bruckner, has done a masterfull job creating a very comfortable get away. I would recommend this stopover for anyone passing through. Somehow, I passed out for most of the rest of the day, but I do remember a delicious dinner, fun conversation and 2 or 3 beers in there somewhere.
PS The Elkhorn's kitchen ceiling is adorned with 30' philodendron vines interlaced together. I suggested some Christmas ornaments as well...