Travels with Walter: 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.