Day 12 – Eureka to Whitefish

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56 miles today

Good start this morning after a restful night in the Silverado Hotel in Eureka. We back tracked our in-error route yesterday then at the end of town turned off the highway onto a small road that took us through forests … And no traffic.

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After 17 miles or so this pleasant way dumped us back on the highway. It was Sunday so there was not too much traffic and no trucks but the shoulder was narrow.

We had lunch at the post office in Olney and hopped back on the road for the final 20 miles. Sadly, at that point the condition of Route 93 deteriorated badly making the biking very uncomfortable. It seems that everyone in Montana either drives a pick up or is towing some huge camper or trailer causing anxiety every time one passes us particularly if there happens to be oncoming traffic squeezing us all close together.image

There are many crosses planted along the road, simple, small steel crosses painted white on 4′ posts. The speed limit on this rough road was 70 and we wondered if reducing the posted speeds might result in fewer crosses.

To make matters worse, the altitude profile we had seen for today’s ride failed to show several of the hills at the very end of our ride. These are the kinds of challenges that make me sigh and say “Really?”

We arrived mid afternoon in Whitefish and found our hosts. Turns out Rita, our host, knows Maja’s swim coach at Dartmouth.  Small world department.

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We visited our first Frank Lloyd Wright building of the trip, a small office building he designed for a friend of his in 1958. Wright died in ’59 so never saw the completed building. It has seen quite a bit of remodeling but is still known as “The Frank Lloyd Wright Building.”

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Maja’s addendum:

As I look back at our rides, there appear to be two categories:  the “stop and smell the roses rides” and the “get from point A to point B” rides. Today was definitely the latter.  When we started the temps were in the mid 40s, so quite chilly. Luckily, it was partly sunny for the ride, so we warmed up. The ride on the two lane highway with the 70 mph speed limit was white knuckle most of the way. I’m sure the views were very beautiful, be we were totally focused on the road. We were happy to get to Whitefish! Our “warm shower hosts” are great and spoiled us with beer and snacks before we headed into town for dinner. There’s another cyclist staying here: an Aussie who is just about to finish the Mexico to Canada Continental Divide ride all on forest trails/roads. He averages about 100 miles a day. Wow! We also met a really interesting character in Eureka, who I think should be played by Johnny Depp, if there’s ever a movie made about him. He had a coonskin hat (tail and all), and approached us in the parking lot when he saw our bikes.  He had some interesting stories to tell about his architecture as well as fund raising experiences (said he raised $15 million). Very eccentric. We gave him our Bike Wright card.  So our string of meeting interesting people continues. That said, Montana gets demerits from a bike toting pick up driver who made fun of us in Eureka when we asked him for directions to the motel we wanted to stay at and he realized we had biked all the way through town, downhill, only to have to return the same way we came. He certainly takes the “Schadenfreude” award.  Looking forward to a short ride and some rest at Glacier!!!

Some more photos….

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On our ride out of Anacortes we rode on a sketch of asphalt where a sign warned cyclists to be ware of sharp objects.  Seagulls dropped clams onto the asphalt to break them and eat the meat, leaving the sharp shells on the pavement.

 

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One of the many gorgeous lakes we passed early in our ride through Washington

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Winding roads up hill

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Our first camping location in a national park on the way to our huge climbs

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Washington Pass:  our hardest day by far.  42 miles up hill.  Altitude 5,477 feet

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Barns….  I could have taken photos of them all day long

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Beautiful fields on the way the BC, Canada

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A lake on the same route

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Taking a wee break

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Our favorite road sign!

 

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One of many scenic spots for a picnic lunch

 

Day 11 – Libby to Eureka

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82 miles today.

That figure is as bit misleading since as we tried our best to leave Libby we got (in the words of our rescuer Fred from yesterday) “slightly confused.” The maps we had and our GPS didn’t sync up so we spent a bit of time and distance figuring things out. Google Maps is not always accurate but as a corroborating source it served us today.  We did finally make it out of town after an egg McMuffin equivalent at the local grocery store and sandwich provisions for later in the day. The road we were on paralleled the river and train tracks (the same tracks on which the long trains ran all last night with air horns blasting and, yes, they kept me awake! Train whistles may be a plaintiff sound in the country music vocabulary and each train is different but they are loud!).

After 15 miles on this very quiet road we crossed the river to take an alternate route around Lake Koocanusa (Kootenai+Canada+USA) recommended to us by some Canadian cyclists we met yesterday.

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Starting the Lake Koocanusa Alternative Route

It was a very wise choice! The road was longer by 4 or 5 miles but totally our own with no lumber trucks and very little other traffic. There were warnings about grizzly sightings but we saw not a single animal of any sort (except for the vultures, crows and Ospreys). The way was hilly, with a monster up hill at the very beginning of our ride as far as the visitor center for the Libby Dam. After that we had numerous ups and downs for 45 miles but, as I said, we had the road to ourselves so could often ride side by side… And actually talk instead of listening for approaching cars and trucks.

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Libby Dam

We’ve settled on a good food plan so integrate breaks with lunch and/or bananas and good old Cliff Bars.

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Lunch al fresca

So… After 45 miles we crossed the river on a new and very wide bridge high above the river. The cross wind was impressive and being more or less alone on that long span with the wind actually singing through the railings was a little surreal. After the bridge we had 16 miles or so to Eureka but, once again, we had to navigate carefully the space on the shoulder between the rumble strips and the loose gravel with cars and trucks whizzing by at 70 miles an hour (not a relaxing bicycle ride).

The last miles into Eureka had no shoulder at all and, as you might expect at the shank end of a long day we were not in a good mental space to deal with the cars.  Anyway, we made it to Eureka and, trusting Apple Maps, road down a long hill all the way through town in hopes of finding our hotel.  Predictably, once we asked at the gas station we were told that the hotel was, in reality, at the upper end of town so, not happy, we biked back up the long hill and checked into a hotel. Only then did we find that this place had no wi-fi!  (Really! I say.) So we rode a little farther and got a room with wi fi at a different place. Gambling is legal in Montana so every little place (hotel, restaurant etc.) has a “casino” – they really only offer one armed bandits and computer poker etc.

We are fed and back in our room and will head to Whitefish tomorrow and will stay with another Warm Showers host.

Day 10 – Clark Fork to Libby, MT

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After a good night’s rest we loaded all our panniers (a place for everything …) and biked to the local bakery/cafe for breakfast burritos, sandwiches for lunch and some trail mix. Then we hit the road in a light rain. The forecast was rain all day but that never materialized, it was just clouds and cool temps. We took an alternate route that paralleled the horrible Hwy. 200 and were soon zipping through fields and farms and entered Montana.

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Typical scenery for the day

The last mile or so of this road before it re-joined the 200 was gravel and the joy of zooming downhill was tempered by the washboard road and occasional potholes. Rounding a bend we flew into and out of the town of Heron where we had our first dog chasing incident of the trip… It all ended well when he/she saw we were pretty fast prey! The road continued in gravel and we went up and down for a while until we realized we should have turned left before even getting into Heron. We stood at a Y in the road trying to figure out where we were and how to get back on track – retracing our route back down and up was not appealing. Along the road came a beat up pick up and we flagged the driver down to ask for help since we were “lost.”

“You’re never lost,” he said. “Only slightly confused!” His name is Fred and he lives off the grid at the end of that gravel road. Without any hesitation he cleared space for our bikes in the tool-and-equipment-filled bed of his truck and lashed everything in securely.

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Fred tying in our bikes

We crowded into the cab (it was a mini pick up) and Fred drove us back into Heron where we unloaded at the turn we should have made in the first place. As we thanked him for his kindness he said he wondered why God had made him leave his house at that time today. I guess it was to help us!

The rest of the ride was quiet on a nice road leading to Libby. We stopped outside of town and Maja walked down to the Kootenai Falls (think DiCaprio’s escape over the falls in the Revenant…

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Kootenai Falls as we saw them

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Leo DiCaprio’s character shooting the rapids at Kootenai Falls in The Revenant.

The scene was filmed at Kootenai). We are camping at the Two Bit Campground in Libby and head for Eureka tomorrow and are now in the Mountain time zone.

Musings (2) by Maja

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3:1. A free Frank Lloyd Wright phone cover to whoever guesses correctly what the preceding numbers refer to. They will change over the course of our ride. All guesses are welcome.

Washington, Idaho and Montana

As we left Washington and entered Idaho, I was thinking about my impressions of the State. Scenic, green, lumber, lumber and more lumber, lots of bodies of water, and above all friendly. Washington has set a pretty high friendliness bar. We’ll see how future states fare.

Our ride through Idaho yesterday was absolutely everything a bike ride should be. Beautiful weather–not too hot or cold, nor too sunny or cloudy–and gorgeous scenery. It truly is “God’s country” as one gentleman with whom we were speaking called it. We spent the night in Clark’s Ford, a tiny town with a high school, a small country store, a bakery, a restaurant and a lodge. We were totally blown away by the quality of the food in a place we easily could have dismissed as being in the middle of nowhere The bakery used and stocked goods that were organic and local as did the restaurant. Both could easily have made it in a large city. But their owners prefer little Clark’s Ford. This ride is certainly teaching me a thing or two about assumptions.

Outside of the bakery we talked to a couple who retired to the area about 8 years ago and bought some land on the river–enough so that they don’t see any of their neighbors. I imagine that he was about 75 or so. His parents were German and he grew up in CA speaking German and still did a bit. We talked a while about our common ancestry and how his uncle had been captured by the Russians during WW II and then escaped and surrendered to the Americans, just like mine. He and his wife provide the eggs used by the bakery. They were a lot of fun to talk to (the couple, not the eggs). These short conversations we are having with people we meet on the road are some of the highlights of our trip.

Today we entered Montana after about 6 miles of riding and then continued for another 55 or so. We had decided to take an alternate route that got us off the busy two-lane highway with zero shoulders and blind turns for at least a little while. We ended up riding on a dirt road into nowhere because we missed our turn back onto the highway and got lost. Luckily for us, we managed to flag down a vehicle that happened past and the driver offered to take us back to where we should have been. We happily accepted his offer! During the ride he told us that he had moved here 7 years ago when his wife passed away. She had suffered from heart problems that cost them over half a million dollars in medical expenses. They weren’t insured because he had just started a new business and so they had to declare bankruptcy. After her death, he moved back to Montana and started driving for the oil companies. He has now retired, lives in a little cabin in the woods that is off grid (solar and generator) does odd jobs and is active in his church. If we had seen this guy on the street, we could easily have thought that he was homeless. And yet he was the salt of the earth, well-read, and interesting to talk to. And of course, helpful and friendly. Another lesson in judging a book by its cover.

Physical Fitness

On a different note, many of you are probably wondering about how we’re doing physically. A ride like this certainly has an impact on the body. First and foremost, is the posterior. 6-12 hours of riding each day takes a toll. Hot days generate painful rashes. Other days just result in pain, period. There’s nothing really to be done about it. I have pretty constant pain in one of my shoulders. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I imagine that this isn’t going to get any better over the course of the ride. Charles is having some wrist problems that have resulted in numbness in some of his fingers. But he’s figured out that if he moves his hands around a lot, the numbness improves, so the past few days have been better. His knees are holding up. All in all, we’re doing fine. Ibuprofen is the name of the game.

Mental Fitness

You may also be asking yourself what we think about as we ride for hours and hours on end. In fact, as I’ve been riding, I ask myself that as well. It’s funny how the mind just empties… I enjoy the beauty of the land through which we’re riding, I read names on mailboxes and think of people I’ve known with the same names. I think about how many miles we’ve ridden and how many more are to come and are they flat or hilly. I think a lot about the cars and trucks that are passing us–are they too close, how fast they’re driving, how big they are, and what they’re transporting. I think about Charles and how he’s doing and whether he’s close or further behind. And finally, I think an awful lot about what the next meal will be and when it will be eaten. But a lot of the time, I don’t really think about anything at all. I just enjoy the ride.

Day 9 – Newport to Clark Fork

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Lake Pend Oreille, ID
Charles on wheels, somewhere in Idaho.

62 miles today.  Great weather. We awoke at our campground and biked across the street to the Safeway for breakfast and coffee (Thanks Carol Campbell for the Starbucks card) and sandwiches that we stashed on board for this afternoon and headed out and up. The climb was short (thankfully) and we followed the Pend Oreille River  (pronounced “Pandorell” here) against its flow so there was no more negative altitude but not to bad. We are both getting stronger on the up hills. We reached US 95 into Sandpoint and rode on the shoulder with the trucks and other traffic. (A word of thanks to all the drivers of various rigs that actually pay attention to cyclists and give us equal status on the roads. Many of the shoulders around here are very narrow so drivers that give us room are very much appreciated). After a bit we hooked up with a bike path into Sandpoint that was the roughest we’ve yet seen – bumps, holes, ridges, etc. – but at least we weren’t cheek by jowel with lumber trucks. There are supposed to be nice beaches in Sandpoint on the Pend Oreille Lake but we didn’t find them so finally pulled off and ate our Safeway sandwiches while trespassing about 6 feet onto a very nice lake front property.

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Lake Pend Oreille

Postprandial we got back on route 200 which is the least bike friendly road we’ve seen – no shoulder, rough gravel edges, and lotsa traffic. Eventually we came across a road crew doing road repair and the flag men were kind to us and let us slide ahead of traffic. For most of the rest of the way we could time our exposure on the road for when they would let cars and trucks through so pulled off until  the road behind us was clear and then ride more or less worry free. This gave us a chance to read some historical markers and learned that near Hope, Washington, was one of the first fur trading posts established in the NW territories so now we can blame all the downfall on that guy!

imageRiding ever Northeastward we finally found Clark Fork.
While we thought from our maps that we had crossed all of Idaho today, once we checked into our hotel (it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow) we learned we still have 8 miles to go! Our room rate came with two free drinks at the pub next door where, eavesdropping, we learned more about biker culture (think Hell’s Angel’s type bikers) than we ever knew, then walked a bit down the road to the best meal we’ve had so far at the “Squeeze Inn.” Salmon raviolis etc were great and the mom and two daughters that run the place had painted a Strega Nona on the kitchen door complete with her overflowing pasta pot.

We saw Osprey on their nests and an eagle today so we can cross those birds off our life lists.

Tomorrow we head into Montana in the general direction of Glacier but it’s unclear at the moment if the road through the park will be open. Stay tuned.

A great day of touring today!

Day 8 – Colville to Newport, WA

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image88 miles today and the weather was great, cool temps, mostly overcast so we made good time.  We had a few climbs out of Colville (we were on the road at 5:30 AM). The road wandered in and out of fields and gently up and down until a monster downhill into the town of Tiger, WA. Just after we reached the bottom (at speeds that were above the posted limit) it started to rain … Luckily the downhill road was dry when we zoomed down.  We crossed the Pend Oreille River and made good time to Newport. We were frustrated early on the food front when the cafe we stopped at didn’t make sandwiches!  WE did have some food left over from our shopping in Colville so we made do. She stopped at a community center on the reservation of the Kalispel Tribe of Indians and wolfed down a grilled cheese then mounted our steeds again. Just before Newport we crossed into Idaho for about .1 mile then back into Washington.  Dinner was very sub par Chinese fare – what do you expect in a small town? – and now we’re ready to tent among the monster RVs.  Tomorrow we will make it most of the way across Idaho and into Montana where we will cross the Continental Divide near Glacier National Park.

We saw our first Hillary sign today!  There have been a few Trump posters and several Bernie bumper stickers … Not sure what any of that means.

Musings by Maja

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While Charles has been doing all of our blog writing so far, I want to share a few musings as I sit here in free lodging provided by a very generous couple in Colville, WA.

We have been on the road for only a week but have already experienced so much. What I have taken away from our trip so far is, first and foremost, that we get so caught up in our daily lives, the news we see on TV and read about in the media, and the relative “sameness” of our friends and acquaintances that we forget to appreciate the differences and the qualities of our fellow Americans or maybe even forget to fully appreciate that those who are different than we are have so much to offer and contribute so much to the well-being of others. Two experiences from our short ride to date reflects what I mean and make me believe, no matter how this political season seems to have placed us in “us vs. them” camps, that as individuals, we are better than that.

Story #1: Small-town USA. When we rode into Tonasket, WA we were greeted by the annual Founder’s Day parade. We took a small detour to get to the Visitors Center behind which we planned on setting up our tent, since bicyclists are allowed to camp there for free. We spent the rest of the parade on the porch of the visitors center watching the parade and talking to 10 or so locals, many of whom were visitor center volunteers. They made us feel right at home, told us stories about the various parade participants, gave us suggestions for our bike route and told us of the rodeo taking place that evening. Long story short, one couple drove us out to the rodeo that evening, introduced us to their friends, and we all went out for beers afterwards and had a great time. The next morning, we altered our route based on the recommendation of one of our drinking companions, and climbed 12 miles out of town to their home where they generously fed us breakfast, provided us with a biking map that they have lent out twice before to cyclists, always with the proviso that it be mailed back, and showed us their beautiful home which they built from scratch themselves, showed us their wine cellar with wine they make, and sent us on our way with self-dried apricots and cool water. The hospitality we experienced in Tonasket was heart warming and we hope that we have learned from our new friends there what being welcoming is all about. We will definitely stay in touch.

Story #2: Colville, WA. In Colville we are staying in an apartment above a storage area that was built solely to offer shelter to cyclists on the Northern Tier ride by the couple whose house sits on the hill behind us. They provide wifi, all utilities, a kitchen to use and laundry facilities and expect no payment. This is astonishing enough. Even more impressive and selfless is what they have done and continue to do with their lives. They spent four years in Malawi with their two oldest children where Barry served as a physician. Since returning to the US in 1990 they have traveled to Africa pretty much every year to “help” including teaching, working at orphanages and providing medical services. Back at home, they hold an annual fund raiser for causes like supporting girls who have been taken into sexual slavery, Father Jean Bosco’s orphanage, purchasing mattresses for a pediatric ward, etc. Today, Shelley drove us into town to go shopping while she made soup for a non-profit kitchen she runs whose primary purpose is to provide jobs for high-school students. Shelley and her husband, Barry, recently bought a house in town (they called it an Oxford house, of which there are numerous in the US) that they rent out to people who are trying to recover from drug-addiction. And Barry works as a physician to low-income patients. Wow! How impressive is all that? And I’m sure I haven’t covered the half of it. We are truly humbled.

More musings:

Politics: We haven’t had a lot of political conversations, but it appears clear that a reputable third party candidate would have had a lot of support in this election. I am thankful that we have removed ourselves a bit from the “angst” of this political season.

Driving: To date we have had only one “mean driver” experience (someone who honked at us for over a minute as we were trying to make a left hand turn) but as we entered Canada we were told of a truck driver who the day before had purposefully hit a rider. Thank goodness, most drivers have made an effort give us a wide berth.

Rivers: Riverbeds here have water in them. What a concept!

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The Cascades in Canada on the way to Colville, WA

Questions:

1. While on a long stretch of country road, I made a point of waving to every oncoming car. Every single pick-up driver waved back. About 50% of car drivers did. Are pick-up drivers inherently friendlier? Does owning a pick-up make you friendly?

2. For every snake that gets squished crossing the road, how many actually make it across?

3. Why do Americans seem to collect junk cars in their yards more than any other nationality?

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4. What happens to the things that were bolted in by all the bolts we’ve seen on the side of the road? Ditto with the items clamped in by the clamp I saw? And what happened to the two sofas from which single cushions appear to have been lost on the road?

These are just a sampling of the kind of things we think about as we’re riding. Life is pretty simple on the road. Greetings from the outskirts of Colville.

Maja

Day 7 – REST!

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I’ll avoid the “on the seventh day…” meme. Barry and Shelley Bacon own this bike hostel that they open to passing bicyclists. It’s a free standing 4 bedroom apartment with kitchen, laundry and… Free Wi-Fi. They have spent a lot of time in Africa helping with family medicine and with orphans among many other community organizations; busy and concerned people and we are grateful for their openness to travel weary cyclists.  Shelley drove us the 6 miles into town so we could do some shopping while she cooked at a local not-for-profit kitchen. We’re back “home” for relaxation and expect another group into the hostel tonight, 4 cyclists plus a baby! Check out the hostel’s website for the full story: http://www.baconbikehostel.com.

One of the things I’ve recognized so far on our journey is that I expected to be able to concentrate on “thinking things” as we rode. What I’ve found is that my attention is so focused on directions, traffic, hills, water and food and avoiding pot holes etc that I have precious little time for wandering thoughts.

Tomorrow is some climbing through the Pend Oreille lakes and then down to more or less flat land and, eventually, into Idaho. The weather is predicted to be about 12 degrees cooler so the ride should be a lot more pleasant.

Day 6 – Grand Forks to Colville, WA

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image68 miles and every one of them was way too hot, 107!  We coasted back through US Customs at the border and followed the Kettle River as it re entered the US, too. Just before the border the river runs through a gorge  and falls so it was scenic. Before long, though, the heat got to us and we stopped to soak our shirts in a cold mountain stream then continued down the road. One thing we’ve notice so far is that the towns we ride through are too small for anything in the way of fresh sandwiches etc.  so we haven’t solved the nutrition problem yet.  We stopped at a general store mainly for the A/C but chugged some Gatorade and lemonade before heading out again. The guy behind the counter told us about a boat ramp to the Kettle where we could dunk ourselves – which we did. So the story of today was fighting the heat. We had plenty of water but after a few hours on the bike it too was 107 degrees. Tasty!

We finally arrived in Colville and stopped at the first Subway we’ve seen so far for food, ice water and A/C and next rode to the Safeway for dinner and breakfast stuff.  We’re staying at the Bacon Bicycle Hostel about 4 miles outside of town and have decided that tomorrow will be a total rest day. Laundry, bike maintenance and rest will be the orders of the day.