Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
4
“The Horse Doesn't Think It's a Real Cow”
Tuesday, August 2, Pomeroy, Washington
W hew!
I made it to the end of the day, I'm pleased to report. And I made it here, too, to
Pomeroy, which is one of those small towns—population 1,500—that makes you gasp at
the size of this country because it is so remote. Embedded in the Palouse, a region that
specializes in wheat, barley, and grass-seed farming and cattle and sheep ranching, it's
the seat of Garfield County, the least populous of the thirty-nine counties in Washing-
ton, only 2,400 residents. It's really empty here, in other words, even in town, which
coalesces around a single east-west thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 12.
There isn't a lot of traffic on 12, though if you follow it east it takes you through
Lewiston, Idaho, and then through the Rockies over the Lolo Pass into Montana and then
into Missoula, a common bike route, apparently. I'm not going that way.
Much of the thrill of a long-distance ride has to do with the astonishment you often
feel about where you've managed to get to on a bike. Sometimes it's because you can't
believe the reward of the view you've achieved. Sometimes you feel like you're in exotic
terrain, as I did most of the time between Hanoi and Saigon, for example. Sometimes you
just feel relieved and lucky that you managed to arrive anywhere at all, Pomeroy, Wash-
ington, included.
The ride here from Walla Walla was about sixty-five miles, and there was a genial tail-
wind most of the way. But just at noon, not quite forty miles in, we stopped for lunch
at a spot on the map, Starbuck, where horses and mules were corralled at the end of
Main Street, and when we emerged refueled from an air-conditioned café about forty-
five minutes later, the temperature had leapfrogged at least ten degrees.
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