Only 26 miles today so more or less a “recovery” day.  For a change we didn’t have to head straight up the first thing in the morning. Breaking camp is getting more of a routine as is putting everything is the right pannier every day so one (meaning Charles) can always go straight to the first aid kit or the battery charger without emptying every dang bag!!!

We followed a river road through a Native American reservation with only a few ups and downs, and since the river is flowing in the direction we are headed, the grade is more or less down. The sandwich shop where we planned on having our breakfast at a town midway on today’s ride  was sold out of sandwiches since the owner had just passed away and the store was closing early but we have our trusty Cliff Bars!  Having enough water is a daily worry but with our on board bottles and our collapsible water bags I think we’re finally getting a handle on that.

We pulled into Tonasket right at the beginning of their annual Founders’ Day  parade – high school band, rodeo queens, Shriners on their motorcycles – just like the small town parades I grew up with in Missouri. They closed off Main Street and the sidewalks were lined with people … And here we thought they were there to welcome us to Tonasket!!

We made our way to the City Welcome Center that hosts bicyclists to camp right there on the main drag. We pulled up and there were ten or so people watching the parade from the front porch of the center so we joined in the group commentary and made quick friends with the folks that volunteer at the center.  Along with Founders’ Day was the annual rodeo. Linda, one of the volunteers, offered to pick us up and take us to the rodeo (well she said “1/2 a rodeo” was all she and her husband cold do and then head back into town for beers).

I’ll add more details when I have some more time and wi-fi but the short of it is that we had a great time and met more of Linda and Tom’s friends, drank some beers and climbed into our tent as music rang out from the bars in town. More later.

Visiting the Omak Stampede in Omak, Washington. June 9th, 2016

37 miles. We awoke in our Warm Shower host’s house, treated him to breakfast and then headed out and up (again!). The road was up and up through forests devastated by the North Star fire a year ago -sad looking mountain sides of burned pines and charred ground cover.  So we climbed and climbed to the top of Loup Loup Pass that, coincidentally, is home to a new wolf pack.

Once at the top we oohed at the view and then descended to the town of  Omak and the city run campground where we tented in the middle of 30 or so RV’ers mostly from Canada, who complained about the “pitiful” state of the Canadian dollar. We can highly recommend the Breadline restaurant in Omak…HUGE portions and since we are burning many thousands of calories riding, we didn’t feel guilty at all about stuffing our faces including at the “well known” bread bar!!

Life in the RV park was a little strange with families living in tents side by side with the Canadians, stray dogs, late night phone calls with the woman tenting next to us at midnight, sun rising at 4:30 AM. But we’re surviving. Tomorrow is a relatively short day to the town of Tonasket and camping behind the city welcome center.

The photo at the top of this page I s representative of the gorgeous scenery we saw en route today.  The “no horses allowed” sign was in front of the rodeo next to which we camped.  Most small towns in Washington have their own rodeos of various sizes, but we hadn’t seen one before that didn’t allow horses.  Ha ha!

The rain stopped early so we broke camp and headed out. The road starts up immediately eventually leading us from 600′ to just over 5000, the first test of our training! Up and up we slogged through waterfall vistas and valley views. There were occasional rewards of small downhill sections but the reality of the climb was a hard truth. We knew we had 40 miles to the top of Washington Pass but at the rate we (translate as “Charles”) was climbing, necessitating multiple stops for water and rest, the clock edged toward 6 hours in the saddle with no peak in view. Finally I succumbed to the effort and had to walk my bike. We agreed that Maja would go ahead and see accurately how many more miles we had while I sat disconsolate by the roadside! Poor, poor pitiful me. Almost immediately a very nice German couple stopped to ask if everything were fine … Of course not everything was fine and they took pity on my sapped strength and total lack of water (an early first lesson on this ride – always have more water than I think I will need. We loaded my bike and bags into the back of their pick up and Yvonne (of Andreas and Yvonne) offered me several bottles of water. We caught up with Maja and made the plan that I would be dropped off at Washington Pass and rejoin Maja on the road. Andreas and Yvonne dropped me off with more water and I was able to eat, drink and even cat nap for the interval it took Maja to catch up. When she arrived I was re-energized and we headed down, down, down to the valley and, eventually, Twisp.  So, my confession is that of the 4273 miles of our journey I did indeed cheat for 4 miles. There, the truth is out.

Eventually, and back in good form, we descended to Twisp and located the house of the Warm Showers host, Scott Demorgue. Trusting soul that he is, he had left his front door open and the futon ready so we gladly parked our bikes, showered and walked into Twisp to find food. We had arrived too late for the restaurant we wanted and another had a “closed” sign in the window but after we knocked, they agreed to stay open for us! One for our “kindness of strangers” files.

Scott’s house is a monument to simplicity: one room and bath on the ground floor and a loft where he sleeps. He’s been a Warm Shower host for a while and a long distance biker himself so understands the trials of the road. We enjoyed his company immensely and fell into deep sleeps on our return to his house. Tomorrow it’s over Loup-Loup Pass and into Omak.

So far we’ve totaled 85 plus 83 miles so the short 37 to Omak will be appreciated.

I’m typing at the end of day three since our 4g has not been robust enough and there’s no wi-fi. We dipped our rear wheels in Pacific waters as the ritual demands and headed eastward. An inauspicious beginning, my rear tire was flat but Mike (our B&B host) quickly fired up his commercial compressor and we did enough to get rolling. Also typical of Day 1 uncertainties, we got off track several times so didn’t make blazing time. Our goal, as stated, was to make Newhalem (a hydro plant for Seattle Light) by 5 and we rolled in a little after 4 to the first drops of a drizzling rain. We gorged on junk food from the general store and pedaled back to our campground for the night. I’m sure we’ll get better at setting up the tent etc. but all things considered it went fairly smoothly. I fought with replacing my rear tire since it continued to slow leak all day requiring several stops to top it off. In the rain and besieged by mosquitos, I struggled and eventually wrestled the new tube into submission and Maja and I both settled in for a cold, rainy evening, raindrops percussing on our tent fly. Tomorrow our goal is Twisp but the challenge will be Rainy and Washington passes.