We left Hope at 5:27 PDT and arrived in Jordan Valley at 5:30 PM our time, but 6:30 their time since this corner of OR is on Mountain time.
We began our day early, John waking me at 5, we had a long day's drive ahead. John had coffee and I drank a slim fast and after taking everything downstairs we were on our way. John drove until we stopped at Plummer, on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation where we stopped for breakfast.
We continued south on Highway 95 to Potlatch, I drove awhile, at Potlatch we headed east on Highway 6 to Highway 9, driving through small burghs with names of Princeton, Yale, Stanford, we missed Harvard by a mile or so. The terrain was green and lush, mostly it was through rich farmlands. Shortly after Stanford we made a short jog on Highway 8 to Deary, then turned south on 3, passing through Kendrick, where the Potlatch River followed Highway 3 to Artow. There the potlatch joined the Clearwater, and Highway 3 ended, we jogged onto Highway 12 to P3, a very scenic drive to Highway 95 west of Craigmont. Just south of Craigmont we could see an interesting iron RR trestle, very high, and another one in a couple of miles, it wasn't as high as the first. We continued on Highway 95 through Cottonwood to Grangeville and shortly the terrain changed from farmland to mostly a canyon following the Salmon River. We descended White Bird Hill, dropping nearly 2700 feet in elevation. While descending, we could see the spectacular valley below, the Nez Perce National Historic Park, Whitebird Battlefield was below us. We didn't tour it because of our time constraints.
Following the Salmon River was a beautiful drive, through canyons so narrow at times there was only space or the highway and river, in other places it widened allowing space for campgrounds or small villages. At Riggins he Salmon River turned east and Highway 95 followed the Little Salmon River. Still nice scenery but not as spectacular as the Salmon River. The land was beginning to leave the higher mountains and become ridges, some volcanic and others farmed. It was still very green and pine trees were abundant.
We decided to stop for lunch when we passed through a town large enough to support a cafe! In Council we discovered it was - they had 3 or 4 restaurants, or small cafes, but after we parked and walked a bit, we found most of them were closed. A huge building with the sidewalks and parking lot closed due to large open holes happened to be a bar/restaurant, or 'steakhouse'. We had lunch there, a very good meal, I had a delicious hamburger and John an Ortega burger. It was also nice to stretch our legs, we had been driving 7 hours and were far from our destination for the night. The next burgh was Cambridge, then Midvale, Weiser, Payette and onto the freeway (84) to the Highway 95 exit, which would take us to the Jordan Valley in Oregon.
The landscape changed dramatically throughout the day, from the green fertile farmlands giving way to the river canyon, on through pine forests and then to the bleakness of dry lava lands.
Jordan Valley was a tiny hamlet with 2 quite small hotels, we stayed in one and had a decent, large room for $44.00. Neither of us felt hungry after our large and late lunch, I ate a banana and cookies with apple juice, John walked to the convenience store and b ought an ice cream and cinnamon roll. We were both very tired from our long drive, went to bed early, but not before we watched the sunset from the motel room window.