From Kim in Kettle Falls

It's hard to know where to start. The whole trip has been a bit, well, crazy in the 'am-I-really-doing-this?' sense, and the last few days even more so. Everything's beautiful. I love the valleys and mountains from the western Washington side, and the mountains were somewhat grueling on the way up (I have too much gear!) and breathtaking on the way down. I've come to admire the sparsely populated hills and valleys of eastern WA as well, especially in the quiet, early morning light.

There's already too much to say. The strangest, and best, thing that happened so far is that a guy named George came up to me and another cyclist I'd just met as we were standing outside a bike shop in Winthrop, and he started giving us alternate route information and offering his place to stay. He even said he wouldn't be around, but we could go inside and eat whatever was in the fridge. The other cyclist and I didn't quite know what to think, but we ended up taking George up on his offer (not the food part, though) - and what an amazing place! It was near the middle of nowhere, looked hand-built, and was both energy efficient and cozy. We spent the night under the stars on the back patio with George's cat.

The route George suggested avoided a couple of mountain passes and took us along barely traveled roads, through small (I mean small) towns and hidden valleys. One of these roads had a 4-mile stretch of very coarse, very loose gravel we had to trudge over pushing our bikes. There were fields, but hardly any houses or cars or anything on that road. About halfway through, we stumbled across a lemonade stand! Two kids were selling drinks at the end of their driveway. Was it a mirage??? Good thing there were two of us to experience it. Even if it was a dream, the cold iced tea was just what I needed.

Spent last night in Canada. That's all for now. ~435 miles and counting!