Thursday ended up a rest day, don’t remember what I did to occupy myself. I spent the night @ Bill & Jen’s.
Fri AM I met an 8:00 AM appointment for the refrigerator service. Warranty requires a service in year 2 of ownership to maintain warranty coverage. Tech discovered that burner was almost completely blocked. He cleaned it making the frige more efficient. During the test light he discovered he had a loose propane fitting. Ohh, not good, we stopped it before the fire took hold.
Met Rick, a long time buddy, old in age 2 years younger than me and the reason he beats me is he is younger. Rick has Beacon dialed. He promised me a 3 hour ride. We made 2 1/2 hrs of hard riding. There are more miles of new trails cut in than when I last rode. And Rick knows how to put a whopper together. Many challenging miles just outside Spokane city. We sipped a cold beer in the shade @ Esmeraldo Golf course parking lot. And then drove out into the valley to Mars house for dinner and friendship w/ Rick & Mars. They just returned from a Crested Butte 2 week bike vaca. Mars destroyed her shoulder during a freak fall and learned that she severed 2 of 4 rotator cuff tendons and a partial on a third. Rider down. She is grounded w/ future surgery repair. We sat around in Mar’s house telling & listening to eachothers’ stories. I slept in the street out front of her house.
Sat was a rest day and we just hung around the house visiting. Mars & Rick enjoy ice cream by buying this time 2 pints of Haagen Daaz and sharing w/ me. We ate all of it. And they won’t have ice cream for several more days. They say if they have it in the house they will eat it so the solution is to eat it all at one time.
Sun we settled on the full meal deal on MT Coeur d’Alene. Mars would hike & Rick & I would do ride. Today we rode the same as Andy and I did but continued down into the “Hole” and rode out. We found an incredible patch of Chantrell mushrooms.
I picked what I could fit in my pack pocket. Wow, what a patch. There are 2 nasty steep climbs riding out, they create an O2 debt that isn’t paid until either a blow up or gaining the road another 2 something miles, all of it uphill. Just as the trail steepened there was a traversing bypass that wended it’s way uphill ading more ride distance but mitigating the severe O2 debt. And there was a bypass @ the next steep section. It is still a serious hump out. Nice trail. Mars’ hike finished and she met us @ the road. Rick & had the downhill portion of 257 ahead of us, it was almost all downhill back to Beauty Creek where Mars met us now for a cold beer. 14.86 miles, 3220′ climb in 2 hrs 37 mins. Hurken ride.
We stopped @ Capone’s pub in Post Falls for pizza & beer. Capone’s bought a vacant brew pub. Mars told me that the owner’s competitor opened a pub near buy and visited Capones one evening. He got drunk, came back around 3:00AM and set fire to the place. Evidence had the guy dead to rights, he is out of business and in jail.
Dave & Georgie joined us @ Capones. Dave is from back East like GA. We told stories of our common experiences back there. Dahlonega.
Back & Mars’ for another night of camping on the street. We will prepare the chantrells tomorrow night.
Monday is hip PT and a beer w/ Dennis, the guy managing my $. Cool.
Enjoying my time here. Just about everybody i know here works making visiting time in the evening. Rick has freely living time and we are planning another hard ride but on MT SPokane. Huckleberries there are past prime.