Kiki Bikes Across America

Monday, August 3rd – Chief Timothy Campground, WA to Walla Walla, WA

We woke up fairly early, 6:30am and then I started to pack everything away. I even had breakfast before Chase appeared from his tent (that slow poke!)…hehe. Anyway, once he was up, he started working on repairing his tube since his tire wasn’t holding air and he had a flat yesterday. He managed to find the whole and patch it up and then Patrick and Theresa came out of their RV and offered us pancakes for breakfast, so we couldn’t turn that down! Even Morris (the cat) had pancakes for breakfast, although he didn’t really eat them, instead just stared and pawwed at them a little.

Shortly before 8am, we got a warning from the ranger that the sprinkler system would turn on at 9am. However, just as we were finishing breakfast and putting things away, the sprinkler system pops up and starts spraying everywhere. It got Chase’s tent (since had woke up and went straight to repairing his tube, he hadn’t yet packed up his tent and the rest of his gear). We all frantically tried to rescue his tent and stuff and move it away from the sprinklers onto the road through the campground to keep it dry. His tent got a bit wet, but it wasn’t horribly wet.

We rolled out of the campground around 9:30am after packing up and climbed a hill that was completely unexpected – approxiately 1,500-2,000 feet of gain and about 7-8 miles in length. At the top, we ran into another cyclist, Michael, who’s riding from Portland to New York and then down to DC as part of a climate/environment awareness event. We continued on down to the next town, about 9 miles down the other side. We stopped there for free chocolate milk at a gas station and got a bite to eat there (chicken strips, tater tots, and a 20 oz. drink for $2.49). Off we went after lunch back into the strong headwinds and we made it another 10-12 miles or so and stopped at an intersection (Dodge) where there were public bathrooms (pit toilets on the side of the road). Just as we were about to roll out and bike again (we still had 55 miles to go until Walla walla), an older man and his young grandson pulled in and asked us where we were going. We told them Walla Walla and he offered to give us a lift as he saw how windy it was and how hot it was outside. So we figured, why not – I wasn’t feeling very confident that the horrible winds were going to let us get to Walla Walla at a decent hour – if we hadn’t taken the ride, I think it would have been 10-11pm before we got to Walla Walla. So we took the ride and it turns out we would have had a really nice and long climb which wouldn’t have been fun!

Looks a little like Kansas and the midwest, I think.

We were dropped off in Walla Walla and a few minutes later a man pulls up and asks us if we need directions. We didn’t, but he offered some advice on a place to crash for the night – he told us to contact his friend Michael Austin from one of the bike shops in town. So we went on down there and met Michael and he was really cool and said we could camp in his backyard at his house. So when 6pm rolled around and the shop closed, we followed Michael to his house and showered and cleaned up and then walked to the Iceburg for a bite to eat. We had cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes (raspberry for me, vanilla for Chase). Tasty place. Afterwards, I worked on updating my site a bit and then we called it a night around 12am or so and set the alarm for 4am.

Originally, we had planned to just roll our sleeping pads/bags out on the grass since it was so nice and soft, but then we spotted several large slugs and decided we didn’t feel like sleeping with them. So we slept on the front porch and sometime during the night I woke up to something crawling over me – I thought it was the dog, but when I woke up the next morning, I saw the dog was sleeping inside and had no way of getting outside (no dog door). So who knows what crawled over me in the night. I only know it was 4-legged and similar to a dog… raccoon? cat?

GPS Stats:
80.4 miles
04:41 moving time
17.1 avg speed
64.5 max speed

Computer Stats:
36.35 miles
03:36:01 moving time
10.1 avg speed
29.0 max speed