WA to MT Day 6 - Rest Day
Doug woke up early this morning and took this photo of the sunrise. At 5am this morning, I was sleeping. This is a rest day after all.
After breakfast and coffee, most of us headed to the nearby laundromat. Some chores are simply not optional. I then came back to the room and wrote my blog post for yesterday. After some lunch and a walk into town to get some homemade ice cream, I napped. After a couple of phone calls with family, and sitting outside for a bit, it was time for an early dinner with everyone. A few of my fellow riders were slightly more ambitious than me, meandering around town during the day. Aileen was the most ambitious taking a hour and a half boat tour around the lake.
We dined at a nearby steakhouse which was very good. Pictured below are two pieces of cake that collectively 9 of us shared for desert. Even then, we barely finished them. This angle really does not give a true sense of the scale of these pieces. I would guess that each piece was about 8" tall, 7" deep, and 4" wide. They were insane. I cannot conceive of anyone actually eating a piece by themselves.
Below is a map of the route that we have ridden. So far, we have biked just over 450 miles and climbed just under 25,000'. You might notice a gap in the route below. This is where we shuttled about 30 miles from the end of the ride on day 4 to the hotel. The reason for shuttling was that the road was rather busy with limited or sometimes no shoulders.
We have 3 more days of riding to go. Tomorrow it is supposed to be raining. Hopefully, it will mostly be light rain and no thunderstorms. We have also found out that we will need to change our final ride. We were supposed to ride Going to the Sun Road up through Logan Pass across the continental divide on our last day. However, due to the massive snowfalls this year, the pass is still closed. Just yesterday, they were able to punch through the almost 40' of snow. However, it will likely be 2-3 more weeks before the lanes have been fully cleared, the rocks debris removed, and the railings rebuilt allowing the pass to be open to bike and car traffic.
And to end, here is a photo I just took of the sunset.