Spokane, WASHINGTON - Wilbur - Omak

Spokane:

The ride into Spokane was led by Bob, who I believe is a pastor of the church we stayed with in Coeur d'Alene? I didn't have to look at my cue sheet at all, and it was mostly on bike paths, which is always fantastic for us. We also crossed the Washington state border!!! Jake Schorr spearheaded drawing a chalk montage of Seattle on the bike path to greet everyone.

There was a half ironman going on in Spokane. We cheered a few of them on as we waited for people to arrive.

We had a lot of down time that day because we'd only ridden 38 miles, so I biked into town to explore. Most of the coffee shops were closed down, unfortunately. I was intrigued by the "Parkade" structure they have in town. It's a bizarrely well designed structure for parking, so I decided to sketch the cast on site concrete sunshade at the top. While sketching a streetscape, I got another free food item! I seem to be racking these up, somehow. A couple stopped to chat, and when they heard we were biking across the country, they gave me a sample of sports drink.

Build Day: The Spokane chapter of Habitat seems to be very large and well organized. It sounds like they're combatting a large percentage of people under the poverty line, but that especially with their Restore they are doing really well. They were in between houses the day we were there, but they were still able to put us to work by repainting a house that would house some Americorps volunteers. It kept us pretty busy. Scraping paint off of soft, slightly damaged wood siding was tricky, and then we needed to prime and paint over it.

Wilbur:

On the road, we finally saw a sign for I-90 that read: "Seattle." It's on the road signs now, and it's close! Also, people asking about us are so much more impressed now then they were back on the east coast (with good reason). The terrain turned back into Nebraska!!! We weren't too pleased by this fact, but it was actually a pretty easy ride day. Eric and I were going 26 mph at one point on the flats. We got into town pretty early, and then many of us picked up some great items at a local thrift shop. I don't think I've ever seen Stazzle so giddy before: he'd found an old Samsonite hardshell suitcase that is the perfect blend of quirky and unique. It was also our first camp day. We're all pretty glad it didn't rain. There was also an adorable miniature dachshund named Moses there that we all played with.

Joe was really nice and drove us all to see a laser show at Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River about 20 miles away from the camp site that Jeff Hunt told us about. It was pretty hilarious. The show felt like it was straight from the 70's or 80's perhaps, and the River itself narrated the story of the making of the dam and its history. It's ironic because I remember that back in the second grade (when I was 7 years old) at Lab School, we had a debate over whether or not we should build a dam once. I was one of the judges because I didn't know what position I wanted to take. There were actually only a few people in favor of building in the dam. Their arguments were along the lines of making money. Those against it explained that flooding the valley would destroy natural habitats for deer, etc., and eventually the judges unanimously voted not to build the dam. Maybe that's when I began to be a conservationist? Anyways, that was fun.

Omak:

The day began with rolling hills with dry grass (TOO MUCH LIKE NEBRASKA), a sweet 5 mile downhill, and then the most irritating mountain pass yet. Before I talk about that though, lunch was at Shaw's Produce, at which we all picked up delicious fruits for lunch (I got a pear: I need my potassium). The owners also fed us free popcorn and opened a half gallon of freshly pressed apple cider. The bathroom wall also had a copy of the speech that Cheif Seattle wrote to President Pierce, which I thought was really interesting.

One of our riders, Emily crashed today. Two EMT's happened to be close by though, and she got to a hospital and everything. We saw her at second lunch, and it looks like she's pretty much fine. A lot of bad scrapes, and the wind had been knocked out of her, but no broken bones.

So this mountain pass went up, but then it kept teasing us about going back down. It wobbled up and down, driving Hannah Wagley crazy because she has to manually shift the chain to the granny gear again, so she couldn't tell if she should or just trek through it at times. By second lunch, we were all going a little loopy because we'd reached a lovely 7% grade decline sign ... that lasted about 2 seconds before going uphill again. We all shared some watermelon that Jeff Hunt's parents brought us from Hermiston, OR (apparently they're famous for them) and tried to conserve the dwindling supply of cooler water. It was hot (but not humid) and we were all drinking water like fish. The Pass did finally go downhill after lunch, but honestly, Teton Pass was so much easier. It didn't mess around: it went up, it went down. Also, the downhill went through patches of sauna, I swear. It was very hot today.

Omak is pretty happy to have us too. The dinner was delicious (potato bar), and after the presentation tonight, one of the ladies explained that their chapter had built 5 houses and were on their 6th, so they really appreciated what we were doing. They wouldn't let me do the dishes, although I tried to, honestly. Hannah Wagley also discovered the drumset, and she revealed that she's a natural drummer. We all think she should get herself a drumset back home.

Tomorrow's supposed to be a really high climb ... Hopefully it won't be too steep.

Real life is staring me in the face now though! There are only 4 more days of bike riding left, and soon I will have to find a job. WOW.