On the Road... with Phil
June 30, 2007 Spokane, Washington to Sand Point, Idaho (76 miles) - Off to northern Idaho…”Goodbye to the Jesuits…Hello to the Survivalists”…The ride out of town was very civilized with quiet roads as we leave before Saturday shoppers hit the road. Spokane was once a major railroad hub with a large switching yard in what is now downtown… With the decline of U.S. rail traffic the city established a very nice system of “rails to trails” for cycling and walking. Yet even with the fewer trains, we hear them and see them; bringing coal to the west and hauling Chinese shipping containers to the east. We’re traveling northeast into the Panhandle of Idaho with a southwest tail wind…We love tail winds! The countryside is transforming from grain fields to animal grazing to heavily forested. Saturday brings out the boaters and ATV riders towing trailers heading out to Priest Lake, ID. The forest smells wonderful and the sun is not too. Lunch stop in Newport, WA gives news about the local saloon established in 1895. The proprietors were fed up with rowdy clients and so set up a black bear in a steel cage. If you didn’t shape up, you were thrown to the cage with the bear. Whereupon the bear (who was a retired circus bear) would rise up on its hind legs and roar and pretend to attack the client. Great story of community policing!
I was lucky enough to arrive at Sand Point HS with the first group of riders….which meant that we got to unload the truck of everyone’s bags(!)…Brian and I discovered the local micro-brew pub which made an excellent organic IPA (India Pale Ale). The locals cooked us a spaghetti (must have pasta!) dinner and eggs, sausage and waffles for breakfast…They were very kind and it was nice to exchange stories with them. And so a bit of trivia....One of Sand Point’s graduates of 1955 was Jerry Kramer, who went on to be a star guard of the Green Bay Packers football team. It was Jerry Kramer who “opened” the hole in the Dallas Cowboy’s line for quarterback Bart Starr to score the winning touchdown in Super Bowl One…I saw the game in “living black and white” at the Desert Inn Hotel in Las Vegas as a newly minted 21 year old.
July 1, 2007 Sand Point, ID to Thompson Falls, Montana (87.7 miles) -The country is spectacular in its sheer size and beauty. Lots of farms, forests, lakes and rock outcroppings (and pictures!) along the way. We traveled along lakes and rivers with mountains coming right down to the lake, reminiscent of Alpine mountains and lakes…and I would suppose this gets very “alpine (cold) in winter. So about an hour into the ride, I’m huffing and puffing up a grade and I get “smacked” in the lower lip by a bee….who proceeds to enter my mouth…the disadvantages of mouth breathing(!)…I spit out the little cus, but the damage was done and I had some slight swelling for a couple of hours. I continued up the hill for some team photo shots and we all fixed Ane’s flat tire before moving on and up. Stopped into a café for some java and a rest. Spoke with the owner who told me of community frustration with Feds giving away mining resources for no payment and clear cutting of forests. Her group has established the Scotchman Peak wilderness organization to try to set aside a spectacular as a wilderness (www.scotchmanpeaks.org).
I missed the mandatory lunch check-in...and pulled off outside of town to eat my PB&J sandwich and banana …near a bald eagle nest perched on a 4x4 foot platform on top of a telephone sized pole!! The female screeched at me and I saw the male come in with more sticks to complete the nest, and he perched in an adjacent tree to wait me out. Okay, okay, I’m leaving… I hooked up with Brian at the last water stop and we rode in the last 15 miles. On the way we passed a field of newly mowed hay that had a doe and her fawn running out in the open.. They looked at us (some 100 yards away) constantly which made me wonder if they thought we were predators alongside them. The mother jumped the fence and the fawn crawled under it. They then did the same into the adjacent field which had not been mowed…and they both proceeded to disappear. On into Thompson Falls H.S. for the night in the gym and dinner at Minnie’s Montana Café. Alaskan Cod with Moose Drool brown ale…a local Montana brew. I finished it off with my first banana split in god only knows how many years.
July 2, 2007 Thompson Falls to Missoula Montana (101.1 miles) - Breakfast was the nicest encounter with the local Elks Lodge who cooked and served us a full breakfast. It was again an opportunity to learn about the local goings on, in this case about the elk herds, water wells, and bears that visit at night.. Today’s ride was a “Century”; my first ever…though after a week of 70 and 80 milers, the prospect of another couple of hours of riding didn’t have me too scared. Mostly I just wanted an early start to try to avoid any heavy sun and heat. It was definitely cool when I pulled out at 6:30am. I rode mostly solo but joined or was joined by others at different times.
The first 50 plus miles were fast and cool. Again the countryside was amazing and I got some photo shots. One of the stranger sights was a “steam shovel” 200 feet up a pile of stone rubble on the side of a butte scooping up stones and loading them on a truck…I thought this might be one of the less safe jobs ”out there”. The last half of the ride was a bit more harrowing with small or non-existent shoulders and plenty of trucks and tourists along the way. There was a good 8+ mile climb before descending into Missoula. Mostly is was 8-10mph… but in the last couple of miles I caught a tail wind and bumped up to 20+mph. Finally came the summit and a descent that reached 48mph!!!,,,,I felt pretty good wrapping this up in just under 7 hours of riding….And now we’ve settled into a University of Montana dorm and eaten copious amounts of food…boring existence…eat, work, eat, sleep…But I can tell you that the work is like nothing I’ve ever done, the company is very interesting and diverse as we all work to the same outcome to the best of our individual and collective abilities. I’m feeling blessed. Rest day on Tuesday. Tour de France begins on Saturday… they do 2800 miles… we do 3300 miles… okay, they do it in 21 days while we do it in 48!
July 3, 2007 Rest Day at the University of Montana, Missoula (0 miles) -It was a welcome rest after the long ride of yesterday as muscles felt firm, but a bit tired. Brian and I took a walk downtown to visit the “old town”. We came across the county courthouse which was an art gallery in itself. It was a locally quarried stone building with what appeared to be a tin cupola/bell tower atop the second storey dome. But the real find were the murals around the grand staircase. They depicted the Flathead Indians and their encounters with the Jesuits and with Lewis and Clark. I have read that the results of their encounters did not go well as they were eventually forced to cede lands and rights to the Army. It is somewhat disconcerting to see the evidence of what was here in the west before and what has been taken and changed forever as one culture conquered another. The May issue of the National Geographic has an excellent example of this in its article on Jamestown,Virginia. In addition, Guns Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond presents an interesting theory of why European cultures have survived and conquered others worldwide. And It’s not about intellectual, genetic or moral superiority...read for yourselves.
Back in the Big Ride world, we found a combination tea room and fly fishing store with leather couch and chairs for our sore bottoms; a welcome morning break. Our take on Missoula and the region is that these and other pastimes result in a very mellow atmosphere among residents. We found the local bike shop – Missoula Bicycle Works where I brought my bike in for a new derailleur cable to improve shifting. They feature Bianchi bikes, so I knew I was in knowledgeable hands. After consuming mass quantities of calories this morning, I missed dinner at the cafeteria tonight, as I was in the dorm basement watching Gwen Iffil and the latest Washington Follies on the mega screen TV…Alas I’ll have to survive on the 3000 calories I ate this morning! Bicycle chains have been cleaned and oiled and tires checked and topped off. I understand that we’ll be going through dairy farm country tomorrow, so I’ll be looking forward to some domesticated animals…probably more farm dogs on the attack as well. I leave you with some pictures of “Monte” the grizzly bear mascot of the university. He was smitten with my bike, Blue Jean, and wanted to take her for a ride. I rescued her before she was crushed. Take care!
“Your true vocation lies where talents and the needs of the
world intersect.”
-Aristotle
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Week Two: Spokane to Missoula
