Spokane
/C2C4K
Spokane, WA
Day 31
107.5 miles
1236
After climbing out of Dry Falls State Park, today's ride consisted of riding through relatively flat roads, lots of slow rolling hills, without too much grade or elevation change on our way to Spokane, WA. We passed a lot of farms and a lot of wheat, sparingly passing through small towns with a gas station, restaurant and maybe a few other conveniences. There were two things that made this day however a big one for us. It would end up being our first Century (over a 100 miles in a day) and we met the one and only Wyatt Welter in the small town of Almira, or maybe it was Davenport or Crestron – they sort of blend together over time. Wyatt is attempting to travel the circumference of the US on his long-board (not counting Alsaska or Hawaii) self-supported. It’s approximated to take him two years and if completed will have set a world record by close to 4000 additional miles. Wyatt is a ginger, of course, and so it was only fitting to give him one of my Ginger Strong shirts, which I am proud to say he still wears. You can follow his journey on facebook, it’s quite remarkable.
We got to Spokane and stopped at MacDonald’s to figure out the best way to meet up with our host, Kate Burke, for the night. I ran in and grabbed each of us a cheeseburger of the dollar menu. We are thinking that every time we do 100 miles or more, if there is a Macdonalds around, this will be a tradition. I mean you should never eat MacDonald’s, but if you could ever afford to, its after biking over 100 miles.
We got set up at Kate’s place and headed out to dinner for Pizza and wings. She filled us in on all things Spokane and took us afterwards to a place with a great view overlooking the city. It seems like a fun town that is well maintained. I personally felt a connection to it in a way I do with my hometown of Rochester. Not a big city by any means, but big enough with what seems like a decent young professional population. I could be totally wrong though, I was only there for a day.
I can’t thank Kate enough for her hospitality. Again we were more than lucky with having an awesome host through Warm Showers, a community we are using more and more often when there aren’t great places to camp and we really don’t want to get a hotel room.