Friday AM I said goodbye to Bill and my old neighborhood.
Rode Riverside from 7 mile including Sharp stick in the Eye. The nastiest climb on rain packed sand showed 28% grade, a real lung buster. Recent rain made for a fresh trail, me getting first tracks. After horses & other bikes have churned it up & dried out it is a wheel sucker to boot. As I was finishing the last feet of the climb I saw 2 horse riders waiting for me to finish so they could go down. If I would have been 1 minute later in starting up the hill I would have been riding over horse hoof divots. Trails out @ 9 mile are more basalt chunks w/ sharp faces buried in the ground. I run 23 to 25 psi in my ghetto tubeless tires. The rocks & low tire pressure combination @ speed could damage my rims & possibly burping the tire off the rim. I carefully danced when i needed to be light on my wheels and made it out undamaged. I stuck to my known trails which allowed for error free navigation. One last Riverside ride.
Drove to Bicycle Butler for a shower. Had the propane tank filled, the spitter valve really spat. Hooray.
I have an evening date w/ Andy & Jen in Coeur d’Alene @ 5:00PM. Made it and a wonderful visit ensued. Jen gave m3 3 bars of soap and increased my education on soap making. Basically lye is added to a non ranciding oil and a process produces a saponified soap. Add other goodies like fragrance, or dried fruit. reported elsewhere mice scratched off the strawberry seeds from a few bars. No report of what mouse squirts look like. New smells to van masks ridden in ride clothes. Now the van smells like a fragrant locker room.
We shared b-fast and some more world solving conversation until i needed to leave for Hood River. Andy posted up pictures of our visit on facebook.
Headed out of Spokane west bound on I-90. GPS routed me west on WA 14 to US 97 south. My kind of road I could drive at less than 60mph and no traffic to pass me. Rain fell along the way. I made Hood River and parked in a motel parking lot @ the bridge crossing the Columbia. Its still raining off & on and forecast for Sun is more precip. Bend’s forecast is for less precip. I might just move on to Bend skipping HR.