Yesterday was our day off in Spokane. I wasn't really a fan of the city itself (not very bike friendly), although I enjoyed my day of rest. After breakfast we went to REI to pick up some little last minute things before we hit the road again. Lynn told us that when she did the Big Ride on all of her rest days she went for a massage. I had never had one before and we found a place that agreed to give us a discount so I gave it a shot and it was absolutely wonderful. I felt totally restored and it made riding today even more enjoyable so I think I might have to do that again sometime.
Today was an exciting day for a number of reasons. For starters, we crossed our first state border! We left Washington and are now in Idaho. More importantly though, two other riders and I stopped at an alpaca farm this afternoon. We saw a sign and followed the driveway to find a house with a woman who bred alpacas. She let us go in the pen with them and we even got to hold a three week old baby! I had never met an alpaca before so it was pretty cool. We had a 78 mile ride with chilly but nice weather and beautiful scenery. It was much more pleasant riding conditions than the rain and 39ยบ we encountered on Thursday. At our lunch stop there was a rodeo parade going on so we hung around a little longer than usual to watch that and got candy hurled at our face by the people in the parade.
I'm thinking about investing in some bike speakers so if anyone has any suggestions they would be helpful. I've started playing music from my phone a bit but it really wastes the battery so I'm thinking about getting some speakers to play the ipod. Speaking of which, shout out to Allie's cousin Aubrey for lending me her old ipod since mine died in the fire! I really appreciate it.
Idaho is beautiful and I'm a little dissappointed we only have one night here. We rode into town for dinner and did a little exploring around and Sandpoint is a really cute town. There is a beach here and you look beyond the water and see the mountains and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Tonight we are camping on the lawn of a health club who was kind enough to let us use all of their facilities, including the hot tub and massage bed. I have breakfast duty in the morning which means I need to be packed up and ready to go by 5:45 so it's going to be an early night. Also, keep an eye out cause something cool is happening with the moon tonight (some kind of eclipse or something).
Wish I was out there with you all on the ride, we had such a great time last year ! Hope the knee problems some of the folks are having go away..... check seat heights and maybe go for shoes with some float ( like mountain bike shoes and mountain bike pedals !! ) PS... I used a "SoundShell Bicycle Speaker Case", it's a case that I hung off the handlebars with velcro straps, the iPod went inside, used 2 AA batteries and plenty loud enough.... played tunes across the country last year with it. Think it was about $ 30. Keep pedaling and stay safe !
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