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| Eastern Washington landscape |
The next morning I
woke up, packed my stuff and headed out. The T intersection that I
entered town in went either north or south so I headed south. Five
minutes or so in, I realized I had forgotten a water bottle back at
the church so I went back to retrieve it. My 6:30AM wake up time
turned into a close to 9:00AM actual departure time. Unfortunately, the
road that I was on started heading south-west after some ways and it
actually intersected with the highway that I chose to avoid last
night at the farther away town! I did pass one or two dirt roads, but
figured I'd skip them as I didn't want to get lost and I was holding
out hope that the road would curve back east. There was another
'lost' ten or fifteen miles...
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| Steep dirt climb overlooking the valley below |
I continued on a
main two lane highway with wide shoulders for quite a ways until it
started heading more north. I turned off onto a paved road that was
making a fast descent through an awe-inspiring valley that
unfortunately kept heading southwest. At the first opportunity that
I had, I headed south-east up this incredibly steep and challenging
dirt climb to the top of the ridge. I pressed my luck as I didn't
see a 'Dead End' sign, but it did say that it was closed to traffic
from November 15 to March 15 except by permit so that was sort of foreboding... Luckily, after several miles of dirt and gravel roads, a
lady in a minivan who passed me while I was stopped making a quick
adjustment to my derailleur asked if I was okay and I confirmed that
this road would indeed lead me to where I was headed (Lewsiton, ID).
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| Well that's not good, is it? |
I continued on,
hit a paved road, and was hoping to make it to Lewiston that night
where all I was thinking about was a hamburger or some Chinese food
of some sort. Unfortunately, I squandered a good amount of time when
my rear fender started rubbing. Not wanting to wear through my tire
or listen to it for the rest of the trip, I stopped to check it out
and fix it. After removing both of my rear panniers to inspect it
more closely, it turns out that both of my rack mounts had broken
clear off down at the mounts near the drop-outs and that was allowing
the rack to bend slightly laterally, pushing my fender over slightly
into the tire! I had noticed some banging noises while going over
bumps for the past few days, but hadn't really given it a second
thought as I wasn't having any issues. Luckily, between the weight
on the rack, the other attachment points, and the nature of the
broken pieces providing support for the rack above, it wasn't
actually a big deal. I was able to adjust both the rack and fender
and carry on. If it has survived so far over some horrid road
conditions, I am sure it will survive the rest of the trip through
somewhat more infrastructure-heavy eastern states.
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| Miles upon miles of dirt roads... |
I tried to push on
for Lewiston in the dark, but I saw a sign for Wi-Fi at the local
library in Colton, WA so I stopped to check in and see what type of
places there were to eat and sleep in Lewiston. However, after a few
minutes of working internet where all I did was read through emails,
I got some sort of DNS error and I lost all connection and wasn't
able to reconnect. As I had already put on some other clothes, it
was getting late (around 8PM), and the fact that Lewiston was still
15+ miles away, I decided to call it a night and I slept under the
stars behind the library, eating the rest of the food that I had
bought earlier in the day at a mom-and-pop roadside convenience
store. Ouch - $15 for two meals that included Ramen and canned food!
That would have been a hearty breakfast at a Denny's, a multi-burger
lunch at a McDonald's, and a stop at a Subway. Lesson learned –
try to search out an actual grocery store to buy groceries!
Today was my first
and only 'bad' experience with a car so far as well. While on the
highway shoulder at night, some pickup truck started beeping
constantly as it was approaching me. Not sure what it was signaling
(if anything), or just being an ass (most likely), I pushed over as
far to the shoulder as possible, in the process rubbing the rear of
my pannier and strapped on sleeping bag and tent against the guard
rail, causing me to lose my balance and tip over. I was okay with
nary a scrape, bruise, or ripped clothing as I was moving slowly
uphill, but it was a dick move by the pickup truck (which wasn't
warning against a wide load, farm vehicle closing in on me on the
shoulder, or anything of that matter) and goes to show why cyclists
don't enjoy getting honked at. Take note my non-cycling readers...
Also, my first 100
mile day, even with a ~3 hour break at McDonalds!
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