August 7
50 mi/80km
1300ft/396m elevation gain
Well, it didn’t rain in the night, but it did start about 5am. Fortunately, it was over by 7 and the sun peeked out. It was still mostly cloudy and cool, which made for a lovely morning of flat riding. We hardly saw a car for the first hour or so, and although traffic increased after that, it’s still not bad on this road.
We passed a variety of lakes and ponds, most of the ducks were too far away for me to make out but I’m pretty sure we saw some Blue-winged teals. We also saw more Sharp-tailed Grouse.
The afternoon was hot and sweaty. Around 3:30, we passed a campground that said there was water available, but we arrived to find the water points had been removed. It was a half-mile hike to the creek, but we also knew there was a lodge a half-mile up the road, so we rode to the lodge for some burgers and soda. We were hoping to fill our bottles there but we realized they haul their water in so we decided to go back to the creek after all. The campground was really nice, and we wanted to stay, but it cost $20CAD and I only had $14. We debated putting in $10CAD and another $10USD, but decided we’d see if anyone in the campground had US plates, figuring they would be willing to trade.
So Paul went and chatted up some Washingtonians who came over to look at our bikes, they gave us three toonies (fun fact: Canadians call dollar coins loonies and two dollar coins toonies) and we gave them $6, a favorable exchange for them and easy solution for us. This campsite has free firewood so of course we built a fire, only our second one of the trip, even though it’s not even cold out.
Since we stopped riding so early today, we had time for a few extra chores. I backwashed the water filters, Paul sewed up a couple things that were losing their stitching.
The locals have warned us that the next stretch will be very dusty and the worst stretch of road, out of all the roads. I always take the claims from the townies with a grain of salt, but we’ll see how it goes. Sometimes the worst thing for a car is not the same experience on a bike. But we cleaned and lubed the chains, it definitely does look dusty. Sunset tonight is 10:59pm, it feels like a milestone.Â