Day 43

Before we went to sleep last night we talked about the fires and what that would mean for our route for the next few days, along with our breakfast options. We decided to wake up so we could wake the mile to the breakfast spot for their opening. It was actually a nice change of pace to have a brisk walk in the morning. Get the legs moving… not in a circle. 

The breakfast place was inside the visitor center. It was like the cafe inside the museum, pricing included. I got a breakfast sandwich that looked like the best match for me… extra eggs no meat. Jerry got the pancakes and a side of hash browns. As soon as the plates came out I knew I messed up. Jerry had a nice big plate of food, and a side plate full of hash browns. I had a English muffin sized breakfast sandwich, with 2 eggs. I will say it was a very good sandwich, but the big breakfast before the days ride I wanted it was not. 

After breakfast we had a nice walk back to the hotel. We talked about the town, which I was now half an expert, since our hotel manger was nice enough to give me a ride to pick up dinner last night, and fill me in on everything. Jerry and I have always lived in or very near major cities, this kind of life style just seams so foreign. We have so many questions about how it all works… many questions we probably never put in the effort to have answered.

On the walk we saw a touring bike approaching. We waved, he waved, we waved again like, we want to talk to you. When we pulled up to stop I was surprised at how big this guy was. Not in a making fun, fat guy kind of way, he was just a really big guy, all around. He had massive 3.5 inch tires on a large framed bike with shocks and lots of gear. We were so excited to see someone else riding West. He quickly told us he is not riding West… at the moment yes, but only to get to the trail he is taking trough the mountain, heading East. We chatted a bit about our rides. I warned him about the fire in the mountain that we knew about but it was far enough from the road that we only saw one helicopter addressing it. However, if he’s going to ride on a dirt path in the woods… I was kind of surprised he had no knowledge of this at all. I thought I wasn’t planing or informed enough. 

Back at the hotel I was checking all of the websites. One of which I must say was a US based informational map with not only great information but it all looked very nice. Switching back and forth between the US fire map, Canada fire map, hotel map, food map, topographical map trying to weigh the pros and cons of each different option. I have spent an hour or so doing this every day on this trip, but now it has turned into over time, with fire, smoke and topographical all paying so much more of an important role. And of course, it’s summer time so family reunion in this town has all the rooms booked. Fire evacuations here has all of the room over there booked. Do we cross in the US? Where are those fires in relation to the borders? I end up booking hotels for the next two nights… taking the last rooms in both. I really don’t love the idea of sicking us to a hard plan, but they are the last two rooms in town. The way these fires are going if we get stuck somewhere we might have to do a +150 mile day, through mountains and valleys. It’s just not worth the risk. 

So today will be a short day. Yesterday kind of makes us ok with that. Not that I really looked to make it a short day but where the fires, towns, family reunions, and evacuations are … today will be a short day. I mean this is really a good thing since by the time were done with walking to and from breakfast, getting ready and doing all of this research it’s getting late. 

We got on the road. By now passing through town feels like an old hat. Quickly the town faded away and we were making our way to the hills. Everything was much drier than yesterday. Yesterday’s ride was in the evergreen lush mountain sides. This was more brown dead grass between a few trees scattered across the hill side. It was like all the water stayed from the lake to the East, and here toward the west… well, it looked like it hadn’t rained in a long time. 

We rode into Grand Forks. I had looked at this as a possible stop for last night but many motels said they were closed until further notice. Someone… I forget who, told me there was a flood 2 months ago and they had massive damage. When we got into town we found out they had a “200 year flood” that ruined 3 of the towns motels, one of which had just be renovated and sold. Also much of the towns infrastructure had been damaged. They were just getting back on their feet, and now they were in a drought being threatened by wild fires. Weather is crazy these days is the thing that ends almost every conversation we had in town. 

There were many more of the road side signs saying fire risk *Extreme*. The few farms we passed all had their sprinklers on max. There was a small climb to a turn, to a bigger climb to a second turn… This looked like today was going to be a climb in the heat. I hoped the mountain air would start to cool off sooner then later. It did not. The climb was not too long, but it was very dry and pretty hot. There was a down hill… ish. It was about a mile or so 1-2% grade, down. However, there was zero roll. There was a small amount of wind, but there was no roll. It was very demoralizing to have to push this hard to go down hill. 

There was a climb or two more, but then there was a drop. Not like yesterdays but a good long drop the same. It was nice to finally get past it the crest a cruse down, as long as we could. We rode right down into Greenwood. A had a quick water stop where we met a few locals, or passers by. Shambhala is this week and it looks as if they are all here early. We saw a bunch of cars with “Shamb” drawn on the rear window with colored paint or marker. This town is full of white guys with odd tattoos and dreadlocks, girls in tie dyed dresses and funky hats. 

We had just under 10 miles left in the day. It was an odd feeling to the day, with walk to breakfast, the late start, very late break and then  short to stop for the day. But I got the last room in town, our hotel is attached to the only restaurant in town and though we could see the fire in America just before we stopped, the air is surprisingly clear. 

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

MikeDiazTheFirst

Mike was born in Queen, New York to a blue collar family. An avid self educator, artist, and traveler he’s traveled around the globe three times while immersing himself in the culture of 48 different countries and counting.  Read about his journeys and musings here.

Latest posts by MikeDiazTheFirst (see all)

• Pandemic - April 15, 2020
• A farewell to EJ - March 27, 2019
• The three children - February 13, 2019