Segment 9: Ride Day 45 - Hot hills and cool treats

Route: Grand Coulee, WA to Twisp, WA (Community Covenant Church)

Distance: 93.51 miles

Riding Time: 6 hours: 46 minutes

Average Speed: 13.8 mph

Max: 34 mph

Weather: Nice and cool for about the first hour’s worth of climbing… and then it warmed up nice and steady-like to a toasty 95+ degrees by mid-afternoon. Whew! Stopping to drench my jersey in a mountain river never felt so fine!

Current Elevation: 1637 feet

Population of Twisp, WA: oh… somewhere right around 900 (made up mostly of artists, ranchers, hippies, musicians, wealthy Spokane-ites, outdoorsy-types and the occasional hobo)

Highlights from today's ride:

• Today started out lovely, but ended up being pretty hot. 
• We started out out with a pretty steep climb up out of valley this morning, then had rolling hills and some longer climbs but mostly just nothing for a long, long time. Then we saw our first pine trees again and, by the end of the day, it was quite clear that we were headed for some much bigger mountains very, very soon. So excited!
• It was crazy to see apple orchards in the middle of what of seemed otherwise to be a desert.
• We got to go swimming (and take showers) at a local pool thanks to the church who gave us each $5 in quarters to do so. Never felt so good as today. Our hosts for the night thought of just about everything you could ever want, including everything from chips and salsa and Otter Pops upon our arrival to milk and cookies before we went to bed at night. Such a treat!

Sunrise from church sanctuary.
(Note: This is the window I would have slept in... if I hadn't decided to sleep outside with a bunch of the other riders. It was lovely and cool and there were crickets chirping.)

Morning devotions.

Up, up, up out of the river valley...

Woah! It looks like two horses! Quick take a picture... it might be the last sign of life we see for a long, long time today!

Since we pretty much had the road to ourselves, we decided to try riding with no hands. Good choice!

Riding buddies (Lindsey and Nicole). These two are awesome... and really fun to sing with at the top of your lungs and scream with on the long downhills. Hey, when the landscape ain't changin' much you gotta do something to keep things interesting! :-)

Success! Victory! On to Twisp... whatever that is!

After the Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia River.

And then, all the sudden, there were apple orchards everywhere! Crazy! Amazing what a little (or a lot of) water can do!

Almost-golden delicious apple. I was sorely tempted...

Stacks of apple crates, ready for shipping.

Rest Stop #3: Amazing and delicious peanut butter, Nutella and banana sandwich created by Melissa.
Sadly, I think I ate it just about as fast as it took her to make this lovely creation.

Methow River valley.

The final rest stop - thanks to Tom! FCBA hero and amazing person in general!

Evening presentation on the Fuller Center at the Twisp River Pub... which happened to make one of the best root beer floats I have ever tasted (they made the root beer right on site and it was amazing!). Yum. I love food so much. Ice cream especially.