June 23, 2023
Day 6 Okanogan WA to Tanasket WA
Today when we got up it was 55°. I figured it would be warm so we didn’t put on our heavier items. The Quality Inn that we stayed in had a laundry so we got to do that last night and started today fresh. They also had free breakfast but really didn’t have anything worth eating so we set out on our route. We found a cafe restaurant that looked like it was an old livestock market in its hay day. While parking the bikes I could hear a lot of chatter inside and assumed that meant it was a good place to eat. Yup, full of morning men, I guess before they had to work or just Joe Schmoes hanging together. We had the basic eggs and toast and then we were on our way. Still following route 20 East the ride was comfortable. We didn’t have any passes to cross today. Hip, Hip, Hooray! I think we went about 10 miles and then the 12-14 mph headwinds came. Wasn’t fun but at least it wasn’t a cold wind. We were still on the Indian Reservation as we road and it’s sad where some of them live. My stomach started feeling something and I told Hubs I had to go. He said he did also. So we both left 💩 DNA in the town of Omak. Sorry folks, but if the bears can 💩 in the woods we should be able to go when we have to also. We pedaled on and stopped for a little cheery snack. Hubs is big into cherries and I think they are ok but these WA cherries are excellent. As we went along we came across this thing in the river churning and couldn’t figure out what it was or what its purpose is but I took a video. We saw some neat artwork as we rode along still on the reservation. What we could not get over was the litter on the sides of the road. Beer bottles everywhere and these were clean bottles so you know they were a recent discard. I guess they drink and drive around here. Hubs noticed something on the fence and called me over. It was an animal that must of tried to jump the fence and got caught and was stuck there till he passed away. What an awful death that must of been for him. Saw my first barn so of course I had to take a picture. As we rolled along we came upon this man and we stopped to ask what he was planting. He didn’t speak English very well so we never really got to know what it was. We decided to stop in the little town of Riverside to get a drink and ice cream and we started talking to Frank. He was real friendly and was talking about other bikers and such. We told him where we were headed and he said we had a real nice decline to roll down into Tanasket. He did say he would apologize if there were some rollers which I was okay with. Outside the store we met Steven the teddy bear. He also was asking about our trip and told us to have a safe one. We headed out and actually took a right and as I was trying to take a drink of water I heard, miss we’re you just at the store and I said yes but I couldn’t stop as I had my water bottle in one hand. When I stopped, he told us we were going the wrong way and that we needed to turn around and get on 97/20. Hmmmmm, that’s going up on an incline. Frank said it was down hill. Well we inclined up for about 3 miles. I told Hubs it’s a good thing Frank had apologized ahead of time or I would of said he was smoking some wacky tobacky! Luckily we never had to push our bikes today but we did have some good inclines which does help build the legs. Even though we had the headwinds we still got in pretty early today which I was glad for until we found our motel with a sign in the window, We will return at 5:30. Sorry for the inconvenience. OH NO. We finally get somewhere early enough (2pm) so we can have a relaxing afternoon and evening and this. So I called the phone number and the lady was working at a store and had some customers but she would come as soon as she could. The temps had climbed into the 80’sby the time we arrived here.
Now we had to wait as we didn’t want to go get lunch and miss her. Luckily she came in about 20 mins. Phew. Not the greatest place mind you but it does have a bed. We decided to go eat before we showered and we went to The Iron Grill. We met the most heartwarming lady that you eager want to meet. She saw Hubs shirt that says 2 Biking Hobos and started to chat with us. Her name is Patty and she actually owns the restaurant. She lived in Alaska for 25 years (owning a restaurant there) but decided to come back home. Her daughter and her son in law live here and she wanted to be near them. She was lucky enough to buy her old house where she grew up. We were chatting about this and that and we told her we wanted to go to Banff Canada and I asked if they did car rentals in town and she said no. Then she offered us one of her cars. Who does that? I’ll tell you who, this wonderful woman. Hubs said he needed to mull things over to see how this would work and when we got back to the room he looked up rooms in Banff and we could not believe the prices. Any where from the 200’s up to the 900’s. We decided that maybe sometime we could go there in our T@b and let Patty know that we wouldn’t be using her car. It would have been great but just not this time. So if any of you reading this come to Tanasket WA make sure you go to the Iron Grill for great food and told meet a very, very generous woman.
Sorry but the wifi isn’t working well here so I will be closing this out without finishing it. Hopefully tomorrow I can continue downloading the pictures of today. Tomorrow we head to a warm showers in Republic WA. What time we get there I don’t know as we have a very steep pass to climb. 🤞🤞🤞
I am going to try and add the pictures I wanted to add last nite but the wifi went slow.
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Today's ride: 32 miles (51 km)
Total: 3,282 miles (5,282 km)
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