Jack wasn't "feeling it" that morning--think he'd woken up in the middle of a REM cycle and was struggling as we headed to the climb... We stopped at his store--Whistling Jack's--in Cliffdell, to get some "fuel", then proceeded to climb... We even pulled off once so he could rest, but he wanted to just get there, so we pushed on... At the campground, he drank a coke and seemed to perk up... The descent helped...
http://whistlinjacklodge.com/
Back in Cliffdell, we stopped at Whistling Jack's again and had some lunch before heading out to Fruitvale, somewhere near Yakima... We kept running into Wolfgang, from Germany, who seemed to be having a great ride himself... As we rode, the day began to warm up...
When we got to Fruitvale, we had soup and rolls outside of the Fred Meyer grocery store... Seems to work well for us--food in liquid form... Several other randos had eaten at Starbucks and were taking off, leaving us water and ice, as good randos do... This is where we met up with our new friend, Larry, from PA... Not sure he was actually ready to leave when we were, but he came with us, and his company was quite enjoyable...
This day's terrain was SO much different than the first day's... After our stop, we rode on a bike trail for about 8 miles, then out to SR 24... Here it was open fields, low mountains, and very few (if any) trees... Larry was great about taking turns out front, blocking the wind for us, and we'd do the same for him... We started to catch some of the riders in front of us, as we were riding at a decent pace... We crossed the Columbia River (wondering why it was WAY over here) and then saw our next turn...The route sheet said--yes, up that hill! L Road was a 1/2 mile climb---at about 19%... Jack told me we were "going low" and we proceeded to climb up (paperboy shuffle style) with no problem... We stopped halfway up to take a picture of the valley below, and were watched intently by the other riders as we started out again on the hill... We took off like we'd been doing it our whole life, and motored to the top, while we waited for other riders to walk their bikes up... It was a tough little climb, especially when you added the heat of the day to it...
The next control was Mattawa on our way to the overnight in Quincy... This was a great control-the staff waited on us hand and foot, filling us up on sandwiches and chips, fruit and drinks...
It was getting dark, so on went the night gear for the ride to Quincy High School... Then came an interesting section of wide open spaces, with climbs and down hills until we crossed over the I-90 and onto the main road into Quincy... I think we hit our top speed for the ride on one of the down hills--48mph--in the dark! It was getting late, and our hope of getting into Quincy by midnight had come and gone, but we did manage to arrive before 1:30, after missing a turn in town... Time to eat, take a shower (the water was STILL cold, although not as cold) and off to sleep on the mats in the wrestling room...
