Friday, June 13th. The two of us awoke pretty early, about 8:30, pleased again by the idea of a hot shower. Man, you can't imagine how much the simplicity of a shower improves my quality of life. It's absolute bliss. Anyway, we woke up and took our usual 1-2 hours to prepare all of our gear/shower/shave/lather our man-bodies in sunscreen. We decided breakfast was in order and trekked the 1/3rd mile back into the happening town. Sadly Couleehan's was closed so Josh and myself checked our the little ma and pops store next door, which I can't seem to recall the name of. Grandpa Joe's or something? Whatever. It's unimportant.
We were both pleased seeing as it was still moderately early and we were already up and ready for breakfast. We figured we had a chance of making some pretty good mileage today. So we roll into this place and check out the menu- the thought of pancakes 
overwhelmed me. I ordered a short stack (2 pancakes for 2.25), toast and hash browns. Josh did the same, only exchanging the hash browns for eggs. And oh my friggin' lord did we hit the mother load! The waitress brings over these HUGE pancakes. Literally, gigantic. Really the only size comparison I had was my hand, so take a look for yourself. Thick as hell too! Now... I can eat a lot, don't get me wrong, but I was pushing my limits. The pancakes alone nearly did me in. I was in pain. I was stuffed. I was in gluttonous heaven.
As you can see here Josh couldn’t finish his. It’s ok, he’ll still a journeyman glutton.
So, it was probably close to 10:45 at this point. We’re so painfully stuffed we literally can’t move. We had no choice but to simply sit there and digest for nearly an hour. At about 11:30 we finally hit the road leaving our Coulee City paradise behind us.
At first progress was slow. I was only managing about a 10 mph pace on fairly level ground. I was simply still too full. After about an hour, and my body was getting somewhere with it’s digestion the pace picked up. It was actually rather remarkable. We were once again just going through rolling hills in fields of wheat and the wind was at our backs. A very strong tail wind at that! Our paced climbed and we were holding a pretty steady 17-20 mph speed. Even on the uphills. Simply put we were making awesome time.
Sadly though, there was nothing really to report about the whole road trip. It was the same thing over and over. Field field field... fallow field. Then more fields. Then fallow. Exciting eh?
We did however hit our 300th mile! Milestone 3 of 35ish!
So after about 60 miles we came to a town called Davenport. We stopped at a gas station to get a little food and find out about the upcoming towns and ran into these two ladies from Seattle. Apparently they too were biking cross country! Very interesting. Not only that they were going generally the same direction as us. We exchanged some info, and went on our way. See, after talking to everyone we had decided to try and push ourselves to our limits and bike to the outskirts of Spokane- about 20ish miles away. We jumped on our bikes and booted off through the rolling hills.
Josh definitely was trying hard. The wind was still strong to our backs and we were keeping a pretty constant 18mph, even low teens on the uphills. Most surprisingly I was keeping up. By the time we pulled into Airway Heights, a small suburb of Spokane, it was getting a bit dark. The town was far from welcoming, and a bit on the poor side if you asked me. Josh and myself tried a few houses to see if they'd let us pitch a tent with no success. We tried a few mobile homes with again no success until one man told us about an RV park. We called the owner who said it was fine if we camped there. He was fine with us dropping off 5 or 10 bucks at his office door if we wanted, but if we didn't it was "no skin off his teeth." Good thing, because we definitely didn't pay him.
See, when we went to find a parking spot well... all we found was pretty much garbage. Huge
mounds of debris and discarded appliances. And the wind! God, tons of wind. I was afraid the tent was going to blow away honestly. Here's Josh setting up the tent in our five star lot. So by the time camp was pitched it was dark. We had just biked 90 miles- the farthest we had done- we were hungry and tired. We grabbed our our dinner of champions (beans and a loaf of bread) and we ate the whole thing. It's amazing how much you can eat for 3 dollars. God we're cheap asses.
Day's mileage- 89.72
Total mileage- 331.17
overwhelmed me. I ordered a short stack (2 pancakes for 2.25), toast and hash browns. Josh did the same, only exchanging the hash browns for eggs. And oh my friggin' lord did we hit the mother load! The waitress brings over these HUGE pancakes. Literally, gigantic. Really the only size comparison I had was my hand, so take a look for yourself. Thick as hell too! Now... I can eat a lot, don't get me wrong, but I was pushing my limits. The pancakes alone nearly did me in. I was in pain. I was stuffed. I was in gluttonous heaven.
mounds of debris and discarded appliances. And the wind! God, tons of wind. I was afraid the tent was going to blow away honestly. Here's Josh setting up the tent in our five star lot. So by the time camp was pitched it was dark. We had just biked 90 miles- the farthest we had done- we were hungry and tired. We grabbed our our dinner of champions (beans and a loaf of bread) and we ate the whole thing. It's amazing how much you can eat for 3 dollars. God we're cheap asses.
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