Today was a fine day. After a good night of sleep I left Colville and headed south. I decided to take a shortcut over a little-used pass because I heard there was a lot of traffic on Hwy 20 which would have been my regular route. It turned out to be a good decision, much to my relief. Shortcuts often do not turn out well and this one had bad reviews over at crazyguyonabike.com (where I borrow a lot of trip information). It was reputed to be very steep and brutal. But I took it slow and it was fine. It was one of the prettiest passes I've seen yet. It wound through a healthy forest with very few cars and very little noise, except for my occasional groans of discomfort as I pushed up the hill. I was really happy to have done it, and was rewarded by the customary downhill at the end. During the downhill I took a large dragonfly to my left eye at about 40mph. I'm glad I had full-coverage sunglasses on, and that the lenses are plastic.
At the bottom of the pass I met Luigi, who was coming from Washington, DC. He was going as light as possible and said he's been on the road 30 days. I remarked that 30 days was very short. He explained that he averages 120 miles a day, which is insane. He alluded to some rough storms in North Dakota. He also said he was fighting a headwind the whole trip, which is the way it goes when you ride east to west. Headwinds can totally destroy your morale, so I felt for him. His blog is at luigilaraia.blogspot.com if you'd like to read his story. He is a recently-diagnosed leukemia patient raising money for leukemia research. He is not in remission. He was an animal, for sure.
The rest of the ride was a mostly easy spin along the Pend Oreille River into Newport. There I stopped at Safeway and got some dinner items. As I sat outside enjoying a well-deserved cold Coca-Cola, I drew a crowd of people asking about my bike and what I was doing. It's a real crowd-pleaser.
After loading up on chow, I pulled into the "Old American Kampground" in the middle of town. I took a 20-minute shower, not because I needed to but because I had to do all of my laundry while showering. The Kampground is full of RVers. The RV set seem like nice people, but I think they ought to have some sort of certification before operating something the size of a locomotive on the highway.
I went by 49 Degrees North ski area on the pass. I thought about going up to look closer but the access road was steep, and I didn't need any "extra credit" at that point.
Who doesn't like this sign?
These are the ones you have to watch out for. This was taken seconds after she pulled in, jumped the curb, and backed down off of it.
Kamping at the Kampground. I half-expect to see Yogi Bear.
