Day 6. Tonasket, WA to Republic, WA, 40 miles

I’m going to lead with the fact that 27 of today’s 40 miles were climbing, and the first four hours featured steady rain. Not heavy rain, but rain in all its wetness. It was hard.

Now a little more about yesterday. The ride through the reservation was beautiful, but also depressing. While discarded roadside cans and bottles are a constant, enraging feature of the American landscape, the road through the Colville Reservation was even more densely littered than usual. Sometimes you see cans people tossed out the window as they rode by, but other times it’s clear someone(s) just sat in a car by the side of the road and drank. The latter was the case here. The remnants of sixes of Coors Light, the cardboard caddy still in the bag on the ground, were strewn for miles in clusters often only feet apart. The occasional mini Fireball bottle made appearances as well. (Elsewhere on the road earlier in the day, Twisted Tea was a popular choice, and mini Fireballs never go out of style.) There was a correspondingly-large number of handmade roadside shrines: painted rocks with the name of the deceased, fake flowers, crosses. It was hideously sad. I also got chased by two dogs who made it out of their yards. One was a ridiculous moppet of a thing that I admonished not to be in the road, but the second was a large dog that slipped a lousy fence and ran next to me barking until I sped up enough to tire him.

The roads were generally very lightly trafficked; often I was the only show in town for miles, and the red-winged blackbirds would get irritated at my presence. Speaking of which! I’ve been using Seek for plants and Merlin for birds, and it’s been real fun. The main flowering ditch weeds I’ve seen are lupine, wild columbine, valerian, Indian paintbrush, and something called Davidson’s penstemon. I’ve heard pine siskins and tufted titmice and red-breasted nuthatches. And oh my lord today I rousted an eagle roadside, and as it took off I got as close as I ever will come to one, I suspect. It was massive and intimidating. It flew into a tree above me, a terrible photo of which I share here.

I have not been listening to anything so far, other than the theme song to “Cheers” involuntarily inside my head. You may wonder how I pass the time. I offer, in explanation, a study on guardrails. I have learned through observation that there is a hierarchy of guardrails. At the top of the guardrail food chain is an iteration of the basic design you’re familiar with: a corrugated galvanized steel rail bolted to posts. The best version has galvanized steel posts and a hard rubber block between the rail and the post; the rail is bolted through the block and into the post, one bolt dead center alternating with five bolts in an X. Second to that is the same design, but with wood posts and blocks. Still good! And the most common one I’ve seen. It’s a rapid downhill slide after that, double meaning intended. There’s the version with the wooden posts and only the one bolt in every post. It’s more a nod in the direction of a guardrail than anything else. Then there’s my least favorite: just a concrete lip the height of a city curb that I suppose tells you you’re about to go over the side of the road but that’s also a terror to a cyclist. And lastly there’s the no-barrier version, just some flimsy brown plastic markers with reflective tape on the top. Many are broken. Guardrails, folks.

I’ve been fortunate in the snack department; a photo of this morning’s haul shows a typical mix of salty and sweet, fatty and simple sugar, crunchy and chewy. Fun surprise find: watermelon-chili rings. I also eat yogurt, apples, bananas, jerky, and hard-boiled eggs, mom!

Okay, to today. I climbed a lot in the chilly rain and did not love it. And I have another mountain tomorrow. But I’ve learned to love my granny gear (loud shout-out to Steve, who fielded a repair call on my second morning to get my granny gear back in shifting order before the climbing started for real—I would be dead in the water otherwise!), which did not used to be the case. I prefer to beast my way through hills, straining in my middle gear to get to the top and get it over with as quickly as possible. Joyce has always been better at slow and steady. But these are mountains, and I can’t beast them; slow and steady in my lowest gear is how I live now. Maybe I’ll learn some patience.

Anyway, I arrived in Republic, got a motel room (again: no good camping options!), went to dinner, and wandered the town in the suddenly sunny and gorgeous evening, and the difficulty of today was over.