Coeur d'Alene to Sandpoint, ID

I took US95 the entire way today. There were 10 miles worth of bike path at the beginning, which was where the heavy traffic was. It was a crazy weather day. It started out partly sunny with a strong wind out of the south. I had a nice tailwind to start the day. Then the sky got very gray, tending to black. Rain squall number 1 - not too bad. I think I caught the tail end of it, just as it was starting to taper off. Then there was bright sunshine, followed quickly by rain squall number 2. I grabbed my rain jacket - which was a good thing because this was a major downpour. It stopped just as I hit the bike path again. It was very nice to get away from all of the spray from the road. The sun came out again just as I reached the start of Lake Pend Oreille. What a beautiful sight. At that point I was on a bridge that had 2 driving lanes separated from the bike path - which was almost 2 lanes wide! The third downpour started just as I got to Sandpoint. I was lucky this time - I pulled over under an overhang of a building and just waited that one out.



I pulled into Sandpoint at about 2 o'clock. I thought about continuing on, but this is really as far as I'd planned for today. I wanted two relatively short days to start. I had intended to camp tonight, but I had enough of the rain and opted for a funky motel room instead - not a bad deal at $40. I'm sure I'll have my fill of camping in the rain before this trip is up!

I met a couple from Pennsylvania who are doing the Northern Tier route from west to east on their tandem. They were forced to stay here last night because of a problem with their wheel. It's fixed now, and they are about to push on again. From their description, it sounds like the passes through the Cascades are pretty wicked. But that is really what I expected. It should be an interesting trek across Washington!

Of course, once I got settled in my funky motel room and found my first laundromat of the trip, it stopped raining for the day. Oh well - I have clean clothes, I'm dry, and I had a good dinner. More riding tomorrow.

Spokane, WA to Coeur d'Alene, ID

There's nothing like starting a bike trip in a sleep-deprived state! The stress of the last week took a lot out of me. I'm really glad that I made the offer on the North Andover condo - at least I don't have that hanging over my head. I just hope that my Easton condo sells while I am away. I'm going to try to keep that off of my worry list during this trip!

By some dumb luck, the hotel in Spokane was a block away from a bike shop, and on the Centennial Trail, which is a bike path that runs all the way from Spokane to Coeur d'Alene. I'd only found one route on the maps that I have, and that was Interstate 90, which was not a road I really wanted to take. (Riding a bike on the interstate in that area of the state is legal, but I didn't want to start out there!) Even though bike paths are not on my list of preferred riding routes (mostly because in my experience they tend to be over-utilized) - this one turned out to be very pleasant.

Back to Monday night. I managed to put the bike together before I totally ran out of energy. I went to sleep at 8PM, and dealt with packing the panniers in the morning. That wasn't a problem, since I woke up at 6AM. I dropped the bike case and duffel bag off at Mailboxes Etc. to be shipped to the Days Inn in Crescent City. I made a hotel reservation for the last night of my trip, and the hotel agreed to hold a (somewhat large) package for me. It's probably a good thing that I bought a soft-sided bike case. it would have been a bit over UPS's size limit without squishing it down.

I got on the road about 10AM, which is about what I expected. It was an uneventful but pleasant ride - on the bike path for the most part, although it did disappear for a couple of miles. (All right, it probably didn't disappear - I lost it!)





I ran into a cyclist from Spokane who flagged me down to ask if I had just come over the Cascades from west to east. I told him that I was just getting started, and probably doing the North Cascades backwards - from east to west. He had recently moved to Spokane from Washington DC. He was a very active rider, trying to figure out which way he wanted to ride across the Cascades. We had a nice conversation, then continued in opposite directions. I took a quick tour through Coeur d'Alene - pretty lake, nice park and beach. I had my usual first night argument with myself about hotel vs. camping. I only found one campground on a very busy road. I'm sure there must have been others, but I didn't see them. I opted for a hotel figuring I needed a quiet night's sleep. This should be the last "inside" night for a while.