Day 48 – A First on our Earliest Day

The air was cool and the breeze was from a favorable direction this morning and we enjoyed a nice quick ride to the city of Waitsburg, WA where we were served a fine breakfast. This morning it truly was fast and quite enjoyable. This breakfast place seemed to be the local gathering for the men before they head out to the fields to work.

The dogs sit in the trucks and wait patiently for their owners to get all caught up on went on the night before in the town and what should be done that day. The food was great and gave us good strength for the rest of the day.

The wind that had been favorable must have been envious of us since he had missed his breakfast so he decided to switch directions and pay us back. The cool air took the day off and was replaced by warmer more humid air.
Neither change was to our advantage but we knew that the pedals needed to go around no matter what since it was only going to get worse. The road on the other hand was less than a year old and very smooth and worked to our advantage. I assume the roads are nice and new because the bicycle hating road crews had not gotten the work order to lay fresh chip seal yet. Okay I am sure they don’t hate cyclists but the chip seal sure is disagreeable with my posterior.
The road between Waitsburg, WA and Walla Walla, WA was filled with more brown fields from the fresh dirt that had recently been disked and tan fields from the wheat that was soon to be harvested. When we came to the city limits, US12 turned into a limited access road (short for NO BICYCLES!) and we saw a bike trail following the road so we got off and took the trail. At the west end of town we returned to US12 and continued for most of the rest of the day on it.
Continuing west we came to the small city of Touchet, WA where to took our first break since breakfast. Here we received a phone call from Abigail that the trailer had a completely flat tire. She also said that she and Mom were taking turns with my bicycle air pump putting air in the tire. I was very impressed since yesterday I had to bring the tire up from 20 lbs to 35 lbs and I was winded. They got the pressure to 28 lbs and deservedly called it quits. Later, they did make it to Walla Walla, WA and a Les Schwab Tire shop where they had 4 new tires put on the trailer. This was a good decision considering the miles that are yet to be put on it.

Outside of town, we came across a field of those same wind generators that we saw yesterday. This time it was not just a handful of them but what looked like a forest of them. My guess is that we saw nearly 500 of them today. This means that the wind in this area of the country is strong and predominantly from one direction, the west! Hurray! I was very thankful to the LORD that He kept the wind down to and gentle breeze in order to make it not too demoralizing for us and to allow us to make it to the campground at a decent time. The wind around here is notorious. My brother, who lives in WA and travels east and west a lot, says that the fuel economy improves 5 mpg going east than going west. Hurray some more!

We finally came to a view that made us leap for joy, not quite as much as Lewis and Clark did since they were now able to float instead of walk, but nonetheless we were happy!

The Columbia River could now be seen and we will follow it for the next few days. This means not much climbing and a lot of good scenery. We saw interesting rock formations and the riverbanks themselves were awesome.

The river also provides a good way to transport all of those tan fields that we have been seeing to the coast where they are distributed elsewhere. Soon after we began to follow the Columbia River we crossed the border into OR!!

This will be our last new state! The feelings of accomplishment are good but the idea that the trip is nearing completion brings feelings of sadness.

If there was a way that I could earn a living touring on my bicycle I would but I haven’t heard of too many people offering to pay other people to ride their bike for fun so the trip must eventually come to an end.
The first that we had today was being the first to the campground from our group. I know it was a little unfair since the girls had to wait for trailer maintenance but it was still fun to beat them there. We arrived at the campground at 12:40. It was nice to have 1.5 rest days before the final week of biking. I haven’t told you the name of the campground for a reason. No there is no riddle this time but there is a picture and a question.
As the Lewis and Clark expedition team came floating down the river they saw this rock in the distance and immediately named it this because of what it resembles. Can you figure out what they named it? Don’t think too hard!