Start: 7:30

Finish: 2:50

Saddle time: 5:16

Ascent: 1,394 feet

Descent: 2,047 feet

Miles: 60

Total miles: 424

Highlight: The early morning climb out of the Columbia River valley. Country roads with scenic farm country.

Lowlight: Mosquitos at the campground. Incessant.

Cyclemeter: Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I didn’t sleep well last night so I got up a little late and made my usual camp breakfast, cleaned up after myself and packed up to go.  The hostel has four bedrooms, one is occupied by the host. He came in very late last night so I didn’t meet him and was still asleep when I left. No one else showed up last night. 

I continued my climb out of the Columbia River valley, thankful I took a good clip out of it last night.  It was early so I felt good.  The first part of the ride was on back country roads through picturesque farmland with old barns could easily have been in New England.  I’m seeing lot more lakes and marshes as I ride.

I reached a plateau and continued on for a while, stopping for a snack at a state park.  My water bottles were getting low so I was hoping they had taps available.  I followed the road down to the campground for a while but it seemed to go on forever so I turned around and went to a parking lot picnic area.  A trailhead here leads to some kind of radar dome.  The parking lot was HUGE and completely empty, I was the only one here.  It looked very new, everything was very clean.  I had the last of my cheese and crackers for snack.  My water situation wasn’t serious and I’ll be in Ione soon with a lot of downhill ahead. 

The decent into Ione was steep with a lot of sharp turns, glad I’m going down not up.  The bottom dropped me out at the Pend Oreille River valley.  I headed a few miles north to the town of Ione, about 25 miles from the Canadian border.  The town is tiny with a few streets, a gas station and a supermarket.  I’m planning on camping tonight so I have to pick up dinner.  Recall I changed my dinner packing plan from always carrying two meals to now just carrying emergency rations of cooked rice and canned sardines with the intent of buying along the way.  Tonights meal will be canned chili, rice and a can of wine.  I grabbed a burger, fries and a gatorade from the deli for lunch.

The next town is 50 miles away, a bit much for me at this point since it would make for a 90 mile day.  I opted to stay at a US Forest Service campground about 20 miles down the road, Panhandle Campground.

My nemesis the headwind was back, slowing my progress quite a bit but I still made it to the campground before 3:00.  Cell signal was good so I thought I could spend some time online with the blog, instagram and my photos.

The campground was empty except for the manager couple. Several years ago the forest service privatized the management of most of its campgrounds to a for profit company which may seem like a bad mix of public and private but I must say the campgrounds that I have stayed in and visited have been very clean, this one is no exception.  The couple stays at this campground but oversees 11 in the area.

They have seen cyclists passing through almost every night but I didn’t see any on the road today.  They told me about a father/daughter team a day or two ahead of me riding a tandem.  I wondered if Sierra or Savanna would be up for that.  My dive buddy Savanna perhaps but I hear Sierra has been riding indoors on a trainer.  Actually I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a tandem with either one, no thanks.

I setup camp and jumped in the river to clean up. Two problems with the evening were mosquitos and the sun.  The mosquitos were insane and the sun was blazing hot.  I moved around the campground trying to find a place in the shade with a bit of a breeze to keep the mosquitos at bay.  I couldn’t go in my tent because it was in full sun, I’d have to wait for it to set a bit. After a while I gave up, cracked open my can of wine and walked around the campground just to keep the bugs away.  I was happy to find out my canned wine wasn’t bad but maybe I’d drink anything right now for escape from the mosquitos.

Heated up my chili and rice for diner, jumped in the river again and climbed in my tent with my laptop for a while before bed.  It wasn’t a comfortable evening but the campground was very quite.  Tomorrow I have a hotel reservation in Sandpoint, Idaho.  I heard good things about this town from west bound cyclists so I’m staying in town to explore.