Friday, May 17, 1996
Day 6
Deer Park, Washington to Sandpoint, Idaho
Today's Miles: 63
Cumulative Miles for the Tour: 364
Degree of Difficulty: Easy to Medium (because of weather)
Terrain: Heavily Forested Rolling Hills
Once again I've been humbled by the simplicity of people who KNOW what they are talking about, not guessing or trying to impress you with their knowledge.
The morning started with a beautiful sunrise in Deer Park. Dave and I were both up and walking around at 5:30am. There was light cloud coverage, temperatures in the high 40's/low 50's and generous blue patches in the sky overhead. All that lasted 30 minutes before the rain blew in.The ride out of Deer Park took us 5 miles into a slanting rain before reaching the Highway 2 crossover. I stopped into the corner market to pickup a muffin, get some Gatorade and shake the rain off my jacket. Lee pulled in just as I was leaving, so we rode the next five miles together.
Crossing into Idaho
our second state of the tour
On rainy days, you have to learn to see with a different pair of eyes. The clouds are low, the rain is blowing in your face and the cars/trucks are spraying you with blow-by. The wide vistas and open meadows disappear behind the haze of drizzle, so the visual perspective becomes much closer as thoughts turn inward. More than usual, you have to remind yourself to look up, look around. The landscape is still there, it's just not as sweeping.
Lee's a stronger rider than I am, so he took off on his own after about 5 miles. Ken and Adam, the father/son team, pulled in behind me, having left camp about 15 minutes after I did. They are getting along incredibly well, while sharing the same tent and being within 20 feet of each other everyday. It has to be difficult being in that close proximity, but they seem to enjoy each other's company, having biked hundreds of miles together preparing for this trip.I hadn't gotten into an extended conversation with Ken since we left Everett 5 days and 300 miles ago, so it was nice to ride side-by-side for a couple miles and get to know him a little better.Ken works for Cray Research and helps put together super computers. He has figured out a way to connect thousands of cpu units into one large computer to exponentially increase the computing power of the of the mainframe. He started working with computers many years back, hacking his own programs for word processing and small utilities. Now he mainly works with computer hardware, building large mainframes. He made me feel like the novice computer buff I am, instead of the internet guru everyone on the trip thinks I am because I carry the laptop with me everywhere.Adam rode with us for a while, but he gets bored going at my pace. He blasted on ahead after staying with the conversation for a couple of miles. I like Adam. He's a nice kid who is enthusiastic about everything that we're doing and seeing. He's learning to slow down, look around and take it easy a bit. It's a different type of cycling than riding the training routes that you use each day where everything is familiar and you don't "see" anything anymore. Like I said before, it takes a new pair of eyes to take all this in.
Frank, giving us the info
on the average running speed of a bull moose
Thirty miles down the road, we pulled into Newport. Everyone's feet and shoes were completely soaked from the rain. It seems that we had all made the same mistake when supplying ourselves for the trip. We had rain headgear, raincoat covers for the top of our bodies and rain pants for the legs, but no neoprene socks or shoe covers. Definitely a mistake. Cold rain and blowing wind turn your feet into ice blocks. We had to figure out what to do before the next 30 mile stretch into Sandpoint.
Newport is a very small town, with a main street that terminates into a right hand curve and crosses the border into Idaho. In the center of Main Street is a cafe/deli. We stopped on the far side of the street from the deli while Ken rode up and asked a lady walking down the street about a good place to eat. She jerked her thumb towards the deli and said it was the best place in town. Two women were eating at the table in the window and beckoned for us to come in. What more of an invitation could you ask for?The place was an old time deli/market with a couple of red and white checkered covered tables on a wooden floor. The women we had seen in the window smiling and talkative, interested in what we were doing and determined to make sure we understood that the food here was GOOD. They were right.
Mark and Adam completely enthralled with Frank's digressions
It seems that everyone in town eats at the deli for lunch. If they can't make it down, they phone in and have it ready for pickup. After looking through the selections at the counter, I could see why: homemade baked beans (probably the best I've ever had...I bought an extra quart to take back to the campsite for dinner), almond/chicken cole slaw, homemade clam chowder, redskin potato salad...oh, man, I stuffed myself. While we were eating, Frank came over and sat down with us to give us the scoop on the area.
Frank is a local contractor in the area. His wife works at the deli, so he comes down for lunch everyday. At first, we thought he was the owner, but, no, he just knew the place inside out and could help us with what every we needed. Did you know that the average loping speed of a bull moose is 15 to 16 miles per hour? That's important for a bicyclist to know while out on the open roads of Idaho. We sincerely thanked him for the knowledge. I hope we'll have to put it to the test on our travels.
Clara, as she's offering us a couch and tv upstairs
for the afternoon if we didn't want to go back out into the rain.
Please stop by the Owen's deli when you're in Newport, Washington, on the border of Oldtown, Idaho. Tell Frank and Clara we said hi. The conversation, hospitality and food were a comforting combination in the middle of a rain soaked day of biking.
As we were leaving the deli, I asked the woman at the counter if there was a sporting goods store in town. Her response was, "Nope, there isn't one in this town. You've got to go down one block, take a right, and there'll be one three blocks down". I started laughing. I couldn't wait to get back to the guys and tell them that there was a store four blocks away, BUT IT WASN'T IN TOWN! You know what? She was right. The store was on the other side of the Washington border, in Oldtown, Idaho, population 151. Once again, I kicked myself for feeling so superior. The sporting goods store was NOT in Newport, just as she had said.We took a picture underneath the sign announcing our entrance into Idaho. Paul led the way across the bridge, heading into our second state of the tour. During our lunch in Newport, the weather had broken a bit. The heavy thunderclouds were about five miles behind us, headed in our direction. It looked like it was going to be a 35 mile race to the campsite.Instead of continuing on Highway 2, we took a side road after reaching the town of Priest Lake. Before crossing over the bridge to the west side of the lake, Lee and I stopped at a small general store and talked to the lady about the condition of our feet. She whipped out 20 empty bread bags from under the counter. I put on dry socks, put the bags over the socks, rubberbanded them above my ankles and slipped into my shoes. DRY FEET FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY! Who needs neoprene if you can recycle bread bags? That trick worked all the way into Sandpoint.
Mark, after getting bagel bags
to cover his wet feet
The side road was a beautiful, lightly rolling, packed gravel road that took us along the lake for 15 miles. Snowcapped mountain peaks, meadows filled with dandelions and osprey catching fish then flying back to their nest on the top of the poles along the road are just a touch of what we saw on Dufort road. Idaho's rugged beauty is an entity in itself.
The group pulled into the campsite at 4:00pm with high-fives all around. We had just completed a 350 mile journey across Washington state in 6 days. The confidence is brimming. We're ready for a rest day, them we'll knock off Idaho by Sunday at noon, on our way Big Sky Country. Stay tuned...
Bike America Tours
dblair@wtp.net
1-800-738-7271