See now, there are wonderful things in Spokane, not just the people. It's much bigger than I expected it to be (quarter million or so, I've been told) and full of great old buildings. This is the Newspaper, and it's surrounded by a bunch of Mason-approved stone-chitecture.
The heavy, heavy necking and petting between WA State Utilities and the power generating capacity of her rivers has reached sweaty, third-base levels. They are so in love, and it's gonna last. This little damsy-doozy's been around awhile (as have most of the Spokane buildings, the rusting, rustling, semi-rural city of when- see my previous post if you think this sounds patronizing...) and serves as a cornerstone of a beautiful riverfront- no foolin', it is the pretty.
Who knew that the bookstore sells Temporary, Olde-Tymey tattoos? Well, they do. That's my boob and Mandy-Jo's wicked pipe- she's got a serpent and swashbuckling sword, I've got the "Homeward" ship that sweated off in the first day. (Also, sorry for the nipple shot. I'll try and keep 'er PG13, for the kiddies, you know...)
There are eco-terrorists in Spokane, too. Hmm. Contact Homeland Security.
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Speaking of Homeland Security, the terror alert matches my sunburn pattern, sorta: this year's hot new colors range from Pale and Pimply to Pink and Puffy to Reddish Brownish almost Tannish and then to a shade I couldn't include for lack of a good nose close-up: we have Blistery! (Mom, I'll wear sunscreen from now on, I swear). 
The Canoes at Katie's Camp Sweyolaken are as old as the camp itself. They are in amazingly great shape (continuously patched, varnished and repainted, I assume) for being (drumroll) friggin' Eighty or Ninety years old. Who wants to drop everything and devote their LIVES to building wooden watercraft? Check out the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle or Port Townsend, if you're serious about this...
"Miss Katie," the lovely camp counselor and star of Sweyolaken. I did my damndest to get her to cry on departure, but she is like a rock... Besides, summer camp is a continual series of hellos and goodbyes, she's used to it. She's got the best friend/drill sargeant/teacher/songstress thing down, and her campers love/fear/adore and are shaped by her steady guiding hand. That's water in the "Five Years of Service" stein, by the way.
The Sweyolakenites were kind enough to hoist me up on the giant swing and let her rip. Somewhat less comfortable than a roofers harness, but the odd pressure in odd places reminded me of days spent with a nail gun on the third floor of Patterson Park. I also managed to get some archery in, and some snack, but no arts and crafts, unfortunately, because of the fire drill. Katie's and my strategy for survival? Escape the blaze by jumping in the lake fully clothed. Bonsai.
Thirty miles south of Coeur d'Alene lies Plummer, ID and the start of the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes (am I spelling that right? irritating. am I spelling that right?). It's a beautifully re-surfaced rail to trail system, spans about 70 miles, and is full of cool features like this bridge across the lake...
...And this stretch of blacktop, which is in part to encourage bike tourism, part to cover up Super-Fund levels of soil toxicity. Apparently the old railbed was built up with mine tailings that contain heavy metals, mercury, and lead. Of course I only read this after I pumped a few bottles worth of water from the creeks... my filter don't do shit for lead, I'm afraid. Luckily Tom, owner of the Snakepit B&G (best damn $4.50 salad bar I've ever exploited. Potato salad and macaroni salad? Carbo-loading on the cheap) refilled my tainted containers and pointed me toward a nice campspot in the bushes...
And this nifty little bike shop in Kellogg, ID. It was the old railroad warehouse, but it has a loading platform (the overhang on the right) now filled with the used stock, and a nice little interior with some no-nonsense merchandise. Wormwood trimwork, too... real classy. Mike, the amiable owner, hooked me up with some trail info, including the final act to the Panhandle drama...
This snotty little stretch of ATV track that put me up and over Lookout Pass in about 11 miles of shale-n-washout ecstasy. It's a curvy little passage, but hard-packed enough to be do-able, and much more scenic than the slow, upward grind of I-90. I was about to try the gravel on the east side of the pass, but was unsure of how far it paralleled 90 (it seems like it does, but there may have been some creek fording involved, perhaps a rail bridge or too... worth investigating, because 90 was a beat up mess of a road. When you can feel the sidepanels of a 53' tractor-trailer with your ear hairs, the shoulder is a bit narrow for bikin', methinks).
I descended 33 miles (safely, mom, that ear-hair stuff was a slight exaggeration) to St. Regis, where MT-HWY 135 rakes NE along the River Runs Through It-esque Regis River. I camped at a little USFS pullout underneath this trestle. First order of business was a swim, which was refreshing and relaxing, until I swam a few feet over the back of a snapping turtle. That was, well, butt-clenchingly freaky. He wasn't interested in what I had to offer, nutritionally, however. Then, I watched a half dozen crayfish fight over the heads and tails of some trout that a fisherperson had left bobbing in the shallows. They're stupid and relentless, pinching each others' noses and whatnot... 
Next morning, er, ah- this morning I guess it was, I rolled up 135 for a couple of miles until I came on a fairly tame looking gravel road: USFS 412. I was only 2 miles into my climb and ready to turn back to the highway when a USFS truck sidled up longside me. "This should hook up with I-90, right? Maybe 30 miles on?" I ask. "Yeah, yeah, it will, but I don't think it's that far. You've got about five, six miles to the saddle, but after that it's pretty much downhill." I watch him drive away at a pace that ruins my 3 mph slug, with an empty pickup bed. I could've punched myself for being so stupid... ask him for a lift, you idiot. Seven miles, thousands of vertical feet, one lynx sighting (I thought it was a bobcat at first, though this is cougar country, too, I reckon- goodness knows I'da been toast had mama cougs decided sweaty bicyclist looked tasty or cub-threatening... mom, relax), and countless, breathless bike-pushing sessions later, I summit...
...And what do I see? Forty freegin' miles total (yeah, that's a 6 behind that 2 that somebody used for sighting in his or her elk rifle. "Oh, I don't think it's that far" says mr. forest ranger, that liar...) It starts cooking pretty good, and the view from the top is pretty sweet, though none of my pics do it any justice. I slap on my shades and ride the roller-coaster of gnarly-assed pits and gullies downhill at a slightly less than suicidal rate. I haven't checked my poor, poor wheels for trueness yet, but I'm not holding out much hope.
So, the journey ends, right? Well, no. After riding another some-odd-teen miles of gravel, passing by big old ranch houses and herds of cattle and horses who spook then gawk then spook then gawk as I pass, I wind up at Nine-Mile township. (It should be noted here that Washington state has a charming habit of naming roads for their endpoints, Carnation-Redmond Road, for example. This makes navigation a snap. I'm here, I'd like to go here. Done. Montana, I had wrongly assumed by some of it's place names has a similar habit of naming creeks and townships and other little landmarks by their proximity to other, larger landmarks. By this logic then, I assumed I'd be just a hop away from Missoula, but no). I finished a cheese sandwich and a beer and an Almond Joy at the Nine Mile House B&G (see? see the name?) when the waitress informs me that I'm 28, maybe 32 miles out. What the hell, right?
So it's ninety-five damned degrees out; not a shade tree to save my life- danged, spindly-assed ponderosas can't cast a shadow for nothin'; I had just read the house copy of the Missoulian Newspaper over lunch, which highlighted the fish kill in a nearby lake that had been happening steadily since Friday the Thirteenth (turns out the Artic Char couldn't handle the unprecedentedly hot, "bath-water warm" lake, thank you heat wave), and the heat-lighting-initiated string of forest fires raging in the W.MT woods (the moisture content of the ground cover and forest litter was "at about 2 to 3 percent. Now, to my way of thinking, that means a 97% chance of forest fires" a ranger was quoted as saying (but what do they know, am I right?)). So I'm mulling over all of that information, sweating like a banshee (and kinda sorta regretting that rich, refreshing, effervescent Moose Drool beer that really tied my lunch together) and thinking "Shit, I could concievably keel over and die out here. I'm getting a damned hotel room."
And this thought goes cycling through my head, and I think "when I get to Missoula I'll change my tune. I'm not that much of a pansy, am I?"
Before I know it, I'm waltzing up to the front desk of every hotel off of Exit 104. I promise myself I'll not pay more than 50 bucks. Maybe I'll just catch the KOA down the road. Maybe I can make it to the river outside of town and squat there...
Then there I am, swiping my credit card at Rubies Inn for a double-bed smoking at the sympathetic corporate rate of 64.99, tax incl.
How have I stooped so low?
But this is gonna be a "working vacation," and I'm wringing my money's worth outta this dive, baby. I wash my clothes in the bathtub, smear the complementary lotion all over my sunburnt self, make the pot of in-room Farmer Bros. Decaf, then watch TV and make the Caffeinated version, then run clean water through the coffee pot and rehydrate some lentil stew, then watch TV, use the hotel towels to wipe down my embarrassingly dusty ride and dirty saddlebags, lube every link and squeaky, grindy pivot on the bike, right there in the room, poop in a real toilet, and take full advantage of the security of a lockable door: I unhook the wagon and go for a ride (this is after the sun sinks plenty low and the temp dips to 85, mind you. I'm still a big pansy).
My Surly Cross-Check, which I've now dubbed "Kanka-Sore-Ass-Rex", or just "Kanks", for short, is as squirrely as a Missoula meth-head when I first get cranking. It's amazing how nimble the thing is when the 60 pounds of crap are offloaded. I blaze a ten mile loop around Missoula without dropping out of my big ring- but can't find downtown to save my life. I do find historic Fort Missoula, a pretty little collection of Military buildings and timber-industry memerobilia, so I mill around, then head hotel ward for snacks and free interned access (milking it, milking it...)
Tomorrow is continental breakfast at 6. It goes til 9, and I plan on doing nothing else for those three hours. Living the high life in Missoula, MT.
Peace.
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