Crossing Washington into my own private Idaho then onward into Montana

Sun. 6/4
Another Flat on the back tire, in the same place as the one on thefirst day.  I found this as I was riding out of the hotel.  Took about 45 min to fix back in the room.  This time, I decided to also put a patch on the tire side to prevent the rough spot from piercing the tube again.  This fix lasted all of 30 hours.    

After a pleasant stop for breakfast at Cloudview Kitchen in Soap Lake, The ride to Wilbur proceeds around the lake, and then up a steep uphill :  

"Mostly flat"?  good call, Google maps!!
 

View of Blue Lake from the ascent on WA 17

The view from the rest stop at the top 

Stopped at Doxie's Diner for dinner then crashed for the evening.

Mon. 6/5

Rode about 30 miles to Davenport, and then got another flat.  Same spot, same tire.  I had already ordered a Schwalbe Marathon tire from Amazon to be delivered to a bike shop in Missoula by Jun 9, but with all these flats, I might not make it there.

So... I decided to hitchhike to Spokane to buy something to ride on to get me to Missoula.  Sue, a nice lady about my age, who lives in Davenport, drove me to Spoke 'N Sport in Spokane (clever name) .

Tue. 6/6

Had a nice breakfast in Spokane Valley at Little Euro Cafe.  

Danish Aebelskivers sampler

After a stop at the Safeway to stock up on California Peaches and Cherries, I continued towards Harrison, my first overnight on the Trail of the Couer d'Alenes.

The trail runs a total of 73 miles and is paved.  Getting to it from Spokane involves about 2 miles on a gravel road... not fun, but not impossible.  I joined the trail at about mile 10.

State line about 11 mi before getting on the trail

bike bridge over Chatcolet Lake.

 

Impressed with the bike trail... but then, ran over a ridge in the pavement about 1 mile from town.  These ridges are caused by tree roots pushing up the pavement.   About 1/2 mile flag tire.

I walked into the tiny town of Harrison, and discovered Cycle Haus Bikes and Brews.  

I helped the young kid who was the service tech on duty change the tire.  Could not find any damage to the brand new tire I bought in Spokane, so I took the old tube back to the B&B for autopsy, and discovered the valve stem had a leak, and there was also a pinch flat about 150 deg from the valve.

Thu 6/7  

The next morning, I headed out for Saltese MT .  Stopped for lunch in Wallace, ID where I thought a lot about Pat Farris, who is from there.   From there, rode to the end of the Trail to Mullan, then got on I-90 to climb to Lookout Pass, which is also the Montana border. 

Lookout Pass

Welcome to Montana

Mangold's motel

Finally got to Mangolds General Store and Motel in Saltese, in time to check in, and went down to the Montana Bar for dinner.

Fri 6/8 

All day, riding on I-90.  It's a little noisy, but the shoulder is wide.  One downside is that some stretches of the road have rumble strips carved in the concrete across the entire shoulder, about every 30 feet.  Other sections just have the rumble strips about 6 in. wide along the left edge of the shoulder, allowing a bike rider to avoid the entirely by staying safely away from the roadway.

Around 3 PM, the thunderstorms came.  By then, I had already gone 50 miles, and was only 15 miles short of my Alberton where I was staying for the night at the River Edge Resort Motel and Steakhouse.  I called, and got connected to Dennise, who works in the Steakhouse.  She picked me up where I was hanging out under the freeway bridge.