To Newport WA

June 11, 2023

Rupe and Cyndy make us another sturdy breakfast this morning - oatmeal, berries, yogurt, granola, and all sorts of fixins. They have pulled out all the stops to make us comfortable and fill us up with healthy food. We meet the most delightful people through WarmShowers.

While we pack up our stuff, Cyndy is dismantling her bike. She will travel to Spain soon to see her children and then to Iceland where Rupert will join her for a six week tour. Other folks we know are going to Iceland this year. Adding that to the ever-growing dream list.

My glutes aren't barking at me this morning. We're both feeling better after a day off. We roll out of town on the Sandpoint-Dover Community Trail. It takes us to U.S. Highway 2, which runs along the north shore of the Pend Oreille River. The highway is busy and the cars are loud but there’s a good shoulder.

Our plan was to take the more chill southern route but you can’t get through there since a culvert washed out recently. We only know about it because Cyndy was out on a ride and saw it. What luck! I’m grateful we didn’t ride down there and have to double back. She let the folks at the Adventure Cycling know for the benefit of other riders on the Northern Tier route. We’re on U.S. 2 for 20 miles to Priest River ID.

We’re on all the trails today - Northern Tier, U.S. Bike Route 10, the International Selkirk Loop and the Panhandle Historic Rivers Passage Scenic Byway.

The Pend Oreille River, through the trees

We’re always happy to get a real lunch instead of energy bars. AJs Cafe in Priest River is your basic small town diner with decent food. There’s also a brewpub open up the street. Wish I’d seen that first.

The Pend Oreille River from the Wisconsin Street bridge in Priest River

We continue west on the Old Priest River Road south of the Pend Oreille. It’s a little quieter and slower-paced. Two miles short of Newport I start to pull over at a farm for a picture and can’t get my right shoe out of the pedal. I manage to lean the other way and pull out my left shoe and avoid tipping over. Barry comes over to free me and sees that one of the screws has fallen out of the cleat on my shoe. I was so proud of putting those cleats on my new shoes myself a couple weeks ago. If he had done it, I’m sure he would have screwed them down tighter.

We spend some time fruitlessly searching for the lost screw. It's pretty important to have your feet attached to the pedals on a recumbent since they're out in front of you so you can’t use gravity to stay connected. It’s especially difficult on hills; my foot comes off the pedal on every backstroke. And when I'm pushing on the right the hard surface of my insole slides around on the pedal. Wrapping the pedal with black electrical tape makes it less slippery. That helps, but we have a hilly 60 mile ride tomorrow. I’m hoping for a better solution.

We cross into Washington at Newport and look up the bike shop. It’s closed on Sunday. Nuts. Barry is undaunted. While I wander into the Safeway to rustle up some groceries for dinner, Barry rides to the Ace hardware store. We’re lucky again - he finds a Phillips head screw that's a little short but it works, at least until we can get to a bike shop in Spokane for an Allen screw.

The Newport KOA in Diamond Lake is clean, quiet and has nice big shower house rooms.

There are not as many mosquitoes here as the Dorr Skeels campground. This stuff that we got in Sandpoint is doing the trick. Camping is fun again!

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Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 416 miles (669 km)

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