Day 5 - Spokane, WA to Coeur d'Alene, ID

Weather
Temperature: 62°F
Conditions: Clear
Wind: S 13 mph

Ride Info
Altimeter Trip: 650 ft
Altimeter Odometer: 12,330 ft
Maximum Speed: 26.0 mph
Average Speed: 18.4 mph
Distance Trip: 37.2 miles
Distance Odometer: 346.3 miles
Elapsed Time: 2 hr 01 min 18 sec

Today was a rest day of sorts being that we only had to go less than 40 miles. Also, being a short day, we were able to “sleep in” until 7:30. One neat milestone was that we were entering a new state – Idaho. I decided to ride by myself today and take it a little easy. There was a nice bike path that follows I-90 and took us almost the entire way from Spokane into Coeur d’Alene, ID. It was kind if weird thinking that this is “The Thruway” in New York.

Just to stir things up a little bit, I was (purposely) one of the last to leave camp. That way, I was able to ride (for a short while at least) with some of the other people on the trip. There were other cool people on the trip I made friends with, but they simply didn’t have the physical capabilities of the likes of me, Chip, and Jim. In a future post, I’ll try and remember as many people as I can and give a little snippet about them.

One neat thing that I did throughout the trip was take a picture of the “Welcome to {insert state here}” sign as I entered each state. Being that today was a short day, WW provided lunch instead of dinner. We stayed at the Wolf Lodge RV Campground in Coeur d’Alene. The campground had laundry facilities on site, so a lot of us took advantage of it (the availability of facilities combined with the free time we had). Some people went out to explore town (being a “resort” town and all). If memory serves me correctly, I just hung out at camp most of the afternoon and more than likely took a nap.

Everyone was looking forward to going out to dinner. There were lots of restaurants to choose from. I don’t remember what I had to eat (but I remember I had a couple Heineken’s to drink – more on that later). I do remember that I had a big meal and dessert and finished the leftovers of another guy’s meal and finished up the leftovers of the same guy’s dessert. I have never eaten so much in my entire life.

Most everyone just kicked back and relaxed the rest of the night. Chip and I were rooming together again. Tomorrow would be another short day. We would enter yet another state (Montana), cross into a new time zone, and head into a weeklong trek into "Big Sky Country".

P.S. The internet is an AMAZING resource. I never would have remembered the name of the campground we stayed at but I’m pretty sure this is the one.