EAST BOUND AND DOWN

I am at Sandpoint, ID tonight. I made about 450 miles today. I was on the road about 11 hrs. Most of the travel was on WA 20. I rode it from I-5 to US 2. It was a very fun motorcycle road. I could see that by all the bikes that were running the pavement. It is full of nice curves (sweepers) and some really nice twisties ( tight corners). This morning and early afternoon I had excellent riding weather. The sun was out and the air was warm. I enjoyed the run through the tall Douglas Firs and other big trees. The only problem was that the trees blocked the Sirius signal.

I followed the Skagit River to its origin. It was interesting to see the reserviors because they looked like giant emeralds. This river takes alot of the snow and glacer water to the Pacific. The color is the result of the mineral silt that flows into the river. It looked much the same as the last time I came through in June, 1990. I did notice that the last reservior was a clearer color. There is apparently much less silt that high up. I passed a couple of areas where the trees apeared to be dying. It looked like there was a major shortage of water in this area. There were all kinds of signs stating that there was a total ban on any type burning.

The problems started after my brief stop for lunch. I noticed the sky cloud up and then the clouds got dark. I stopped and got set for rain. I had just completed the process when I ran into the rain. I hit a couple of hard downpours. The rest of the time of the time I was just in a drizzle. The real problem was that they were working on this road at this time. They had recently put down tar and small pea gravel to resurface the road. The gravel was packed down but there was still alot of it on the road. That slowed the travel time conciderable. About an hour down the road I had a real treat. They had just freshly layed the tar and gravel. That was a very slow ride. In addition I was going over a pass with very tight corners. I like corners but not under these conditions. Riding on that type gravel is like trying to walk on b-b's, not fun.

In eastern WA I finally connected with the Pend Oreille River. I followed that all the way to Sandpoint. The biggest problem that I experience for the whole day was that this past week of being off the scoot softened the postierier and legs. I had sore legs and burning bunns most of the day. It sure felt good to get to the motel tonight. Like I said when I started, a very long day. I hope to do equally well tomorrow. Milo