Route: Spokane, WA to Grand
Coulee, WA (Church of the Nazarene and Zion Lutheran Church)
Distance:
85 miles
Riding Time: 5
hours: 42 minutes
Average Speed: 14.9 mph
Max: 36.6
mph
Weather: Not too bad, not too
bad. Mostly calmer winds, increasingly warmer temps… the last climb was hard, hot work but it made the final downhill to the river and slipping into the water afterwards absolutely AMAZING!!
Current Elevation: 1483 feet (or another couple hundred feet higher at the church :)
Population of Grand
Coulee, WA: probably somewhere around 1,000
Fun fact of the day: A coulee is actually a name for a dry canyon (that sometimes has water), which this canyon used to be until the Grand Coulee Dam was built along the Columbia River in the 1930's to create what is now the miles-long Lake Roosevelt.
Today included lots and lots of rolling hills/fields in the dry, high deserts of Eastern Washington. We just had one bigger climb... and by then it was getting pretty good and hot. But the ride ended with a long, speedy downhill through a canyon down to the Columbia River. Here is a little of what that looked like:
Fun fact of the day: A coulee is actually a name for a dry canyon (that sometimes has water), which this canyon used to be until the Grand Coulee Dam was built along the Columbia River in the 1930's to create what is now the miles-long Lake Roosevelt.
Today included lots and lots of rolling hills/fields in the dry, high deserts of Eastern Washington. We just had one bigger climb... and by then it was getting pretty good and hot. But the ride ended with a long, speedy downhill through a canyon down to the Columbia River. Here is a little of what that looked like:
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| Morning devotions... and a new fluffy friend. :-) |
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| So... I biked right past the first rest stop and ended up seeing this lovely Lake-Of-Shining-Waters AND a farm with real camels and reindeer and bison... and then I turned around and found the rest stop. :-) |
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| Mama and Papa: there were Highland Swiss Cattle way out in the middle of nowhere. So cool! The guy I was biking with said something like: "Woah, those horses have so much hair I didn't even recognize them." |
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| This one's for you, Cory. Yay wheat fields! :-) |
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| Crop duster. (He flew right over us while Mark and Sue were changing a flat - so cool!) |
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| After we were all cleaned up, we headed down to the local park near the reservoir for a delicious supper, swimming, volleyball and watching the sun set over the water... all thanks to the wonderful people of our Grand Coulee host churches. Such a lovely, refreshing evening after a hot, hot day. (Note: While most people had civilized conversation before supper I headed straight for the water. A swim has never felt so wonderful - cool water, hot day, mountains all around... lovely.) |
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| Chillin' on the shore. |
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| Aaaand it turns out, Midas and Nicole can actually take selfies of us... by holding my camera in his toes. Yeah, that is some serious talent right there! Also, now I need to wash my camera. ;) |
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| And then Shawn (pastor of the Lutheran church) discovered that Midas had never had S'mores before... so him and his wife went right then and there to get mallows, chocolate, graham crackers and even real-for-sure fresh branches from home just so he (and the rest of us) could complete our real-for-sure American picnic evening. |
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| Shawn and Tonya prep the fire and the sticks... |
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| Somebody's excited... ;) |
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| Yum. |
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