LAKE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL RECREATION AREA (FORT SPOKANE): Turkey Day--and I Don't Mean Thanksgiving

August 2, 2019

A beautiful storm came through at 3:30 this morning. There wasn't much rain, but the lightning and thunder were very exciting. The bright flashes and loud KABOOMS provided an hour of fine entertainment. Then I went back to sleep.

The dotted line highway came through again today. Thank you Washington, thank you National Park Service, thank you President Roosevelt for lending your name to this place, and thank you Rand and McNally for bringing it to my attention. I can only imagine how beautiful the wild Columbia River was before the Grand Coulee Dam backed it up into a big, wide, docile "lake."

I don't know if many bike tourists come here, but I haven't seen any. I HAVE seen quite a few mountain bikes loaded onto the backs of cars and SUVs and RVs, but I haven't seen anybody actually riding them. This is a wonderful place to ride a bike and I think more cyclists should come here as soon as they possibly can. The only other cyclist I've seen during my first three days in the National Recreation area was this guy.

Some pretty big hills were back again today, but I could patiently spin up them in GRANDMAW gear, which is all I ask. Most of the route was away from the river, so that meant a lot of up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down and all around. I hadn't noticed how much more UP there was than down until the last four miles of handlebar gripping descent toward the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia Rivers. A headwind had been slowing me down all day, but I was secretly glad that it also slowed me down on what could have been a flight over a guardrail and into the Columbia with brake pads on fire and rims glowing bright orange.

I'm camping at the bottom of that screamer of a hill so I guess you know I survived. I'm in the relatively small tenting area of a huge RV resort operated by the Spokane Indian Tribe. I'm here because the National Recreation Area's campground is closed for road repaving. It's fairly crowded here, but at least it has showers--which I kind of needed after three days without one.

Not a riverside site, but at least I can see it from here.

So let's go back to the start of my day so I can explain why I sub-titled this page "Turkey Day." I saw a few geese. I saw a couple of hawks. I saw a few quail. But I saw more than a HUNDRED wild turkeys. Most of them were in groups of ten or more. And of those groups of ten, eight of them would be young turkeys, which provided a little entertainment because the youngsters would fly off when I approached and the moms and dads would just waddle away. When the threat of a hungry bike rider had passed, the parents would gather the kids back up while clucking and chirping at them. I didn't hear any "gobbles," just clucks and chirps.

Of course I had to take at least one scenery picture.

Mountains, Columbia River, Dotted Highway, The Reckless Mr. Bing Bong

After I had my camp set up and my bike unloaded, I rode the half-mile to pay a visit to the actual fort named Fort Spokane. Only one of the original buildings is still standing and that is now the Visitor Center/History Museum. The rest of the place is just open fields where the rest of the fort's buildings once stood. I've seen that before at a couple of other historic forts and I don't like it.

Evidently, others feel the same way because I was the only person in the Visitor Center except for the ranger sitting behind the front desk. She looked a little bored.

The garbage man joined me as the only Fort Spokane visitors.

Later in the afternoon I eavesdropped on a couple of people talking near my campsite. "That looks like a forest fire over there," said the guy in the blue tank top.

"Probably is," replied the guy in the white T-shirt lighting a cigarette. "It happens all the time around here this time of year." He didn't sound the least bit concerned--or even interested.

I was interested. I climbed a hill away from the campground to get a better view. It was an amazing sight--like a gigantic bonfire--a gigantic bonfire fueled not by firewood and old chairs and pallets, but by living trees in a big forest. I watched it for a long time and it was a little too close for comfort.

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Today's ride: 36 miles (58 km)
Total: 236 miles (380 km)

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Keith KleinCome to France and I’ll introduce you to my friend Tom, who cycled across the USA stopping by Aitkin MN where he was the honorary Marshall in the annual turkey day parade. Small world, eh?
Cheers,
Keith
P.s. Tom runs a bnb called the hungry cyclist lodge. It’s online somewhere.
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