Seven Decades and Some Change

A 100 mile bike ride in a day is called a Century. Yesterday I did 73 miles. They do not have a term for that so I just made one up. Yesterday Nancy's friend Janis dropped us off in Mullan, Idaho at 7:00 in the morning and we rode the Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes to Plummer, Idaho http://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/assets/content/docs/Recreation/TrailCDAWeb.pdf. Wonderful scenery, no cars to dodge, mostly flat or downhill (except for the last 7 miles), and a temperature range that stretched from the low 40s to the mid 70s. Before the ride I had a secret fear that I was going to end up crawling most of the way but it was actually a piece of cake.

We froze at the very beginning and ended up putting on every stitch of clothing we brought with us. The first part of the trail is in the shade of the pines down the narrow portions of the upper Silver Valley. Once we got to Kellogg (about 20 miles from the start) we began to warm up. We had our first lunch there and stripped off the layers. The trail follows I-90 very closely until Pinehurst where it ducks behind the mountains where the South Fork and North Fork of the Coeur d' Alene rivers come together. That was a wonderful spot with great views of the mountains across the valley. We had lunch #2 around the halfway point in a grove of cedars. Absolutely lovely.

Not far past the cedar grove the pine trees start to give way to more riparian areas and the trail travels along the river and a bunch of linked lakes. Tons of fowl and best of all, A MAMA MOOSE AND TWO BABIES!!! That was the absolute highlight of the trip. Mama was just munching away on moose moss by the trail and the babies were hanging out waiting. We saw another female across the trail in another marshy area and Nancy was pretty sure she saw a bull moose way in the back near some trees. There were also deer and lots of turtles. We stopped in Harrison and had lunch #3 along with some darn good ice cream. Past Harrison the trail goes along lake Coeur d' Alene to Heyburn State Park and up the narrow canyon of Plummer Creek. The mileage markers were screwing with my head because we hit mile #1 (we were going backwards and started at mile 72) then hit mile 0 and still had another mile to go. Weird. Janis was waiting for us in Plummer (we called her on the way...no cell service in Harrison but I got service on a little bridge in the middle of no where...go figure). On the way back we stopped in Rockford, WA at the Harvester for a beer. Yummie. Amazingly I feel really good today, all except for the back side that feels like it sat on a fence post all day.

The Mullan Trailhead

Before our butts got sore

The chilly Silver Valley

Under the freeway in Wallace

Lunch in Kellogg

Pretty

Pretty #2

Under the cedar trees

Lunch again

Mama

Babies

Lake CdA


Going up Plummer Canyon


Plummer trailhead

Still upright

hikebikepaddle

Ferns, moss, Walter, and water on Mt. Spokane

It has been sort of a busy weekend. On Monday I continued to work on the yard, Seth helped me get the dog kennel back together (a huge, heavy structure I made myself years ago), and did a bunch of overall home maintenance stuff. Tuesday started at 6:30am with a bike ride along the Columbia Plateau Trail from Cheney to Amber Lake. It was only around 23 miles but by the time we got done it was really hot. We had a good time, though sometimes I forget how frustrated I can be at times riding on gravel. We saw a lot of animals: lots of water fowl, snakes (two alive and one dead), deer, chipmunks, cows, two coyote, an owl, and an osprey. We had breakfast at a bench overlooking Amber Lake.

Then, I went home, took a nap, and hooked up in the late afternoon with Michelle and Sparky for a paddle at Fishtrap. We went almost to the end of the lake, well past the Narrows, but turned around because it was getting late. I am glad we did because much to our surprise there was a current on the lake. We turned around and started paddling and we just started looking at each other funny, like wondering if we were sensing the same thing. We even had our backs to the wind. It was so weird. It let up as we got into the wider part of the lake, but was still not as easy to paddle as the other way.

Today I went for a very short hike with Walter to Mt. Spokane. It was short because after the third thunderstorm to roll through, we decided to bag it and take our soggy butts home. Lots of thunder and hard rain. We hiked on the Loop road and along 100. I was going to head up 110 when we got back to the 100/110 junction but that was when the rain started again and I was feeling done. It was fun to be out with Walter and he had a good time running around sniffing everything.

Cool snake skeleton

Lush area along the trail

Our breakfast spot above Amber Lake

Sparky and Michelle

Dark clouds on Mt. Spokane

Tunnel Vision

Nancy in the Taft Tunnel

On my last weekend (midweek) off, Nancy and I took a trip along the Hiawatha Trail on the Idaho/Montana border. We parked at the Adair trailhead (not recommended because the road is hell) about halfway on the trail and headed up hill through the Taft tunnel and then back down. If we would not have had dogs at home to worry about we would have done the entire route bottom to top. We still got in most of the trail, about 18 miles, half up hill and half down. The Taft tunnel (1.66 miles long) was wet and cold but we brought along plenty of extra clothing because it is still spring in the mountains. They had snow up there the night before. We met up with several people on the trail who were unprepared and I gave my rain coat to a woman who had her little son on the back of her bike. They each had a sweatshirt and nothing more. The poor tyke was freezing. As we were leaving a pretty cold storm blew in and drenched the place. During our trip through one of the tunnels we actually had to scare out three deer that were wandering through. We were all pretty freaked out by each other's presence. Here are some pictures from our outing. It was a lot of fun.

The Kathy and Nancy Show by the Taft Tunnel waterfall

Crazy chipmunk that tried to climb up my pants leg...Nancy ended up giving it a couple of almonds just for showmanship

One side of a trestle

Nancy at the beginning of the ride at the Adair trail head

A meadow along the road back to I-90. This is such a magical place.

Tag Team Camping

Beauty Creek

I had a good visit with my peeps in Illinois, got a lot of work done, and came home exhausted. The train ride home was good; no buses on the way back and I actually got into Spokane 20 minutes early. To celebrate the wonderful weather we have been having Nancy and I decided to go camping for a couple of nights. The problem is that our house sitter is out of town until the end of June. So we did Tag Team Camping. We both drove out to the Beauty Creek Campground (with Walter and his mother Ruby) near Coeur d' Alene, set up camp, had dinner, hung out, then I came home to spend the night with the rest of the dogs while Nancy and Ruby stayed. The next morning Walter and I drove back out. It was a wonderful day. We hung out, collected cool rocks from the creek, sat in chairs and looked at the inside of our eyelids, then Nancy and Ruby went home for the night. Nancy came back out the next morning at around 9 and low and behold she had Mr. Seth with her! I almost fell off my lawn chair. So Seth cooked marshmallows for breakfast and helped us find cool rocks for our garden. It was fun. The campground is pretty nice, though basic and hardly anyone there. There was a big group of teenagers who stayed up all night and were sort of loud. When I drove out around noon they were all sleeping so I pulled into their camping spot and started honking the horn. Instant Karma. So here are some pictures...

Nancy with Walter and Lily

Seth with breakfast

Seth and his mom

Seth with a rock