The Trail of the Coeur d’Alene might be my favorite trail we’ve ridden on, and we didn’t even get to ride the entire path. After breakfast and game planning at The Bean in Kellogg this morning, Maddie and I rode 12 miles on the trail until we hit Cataldo. In Cataldo we stopped in at the Timber’s Roadhouse to do some more route research. You see, even up to this point we were uncertain as to how the rest of our day would turn out. One option was to hop on I-90 once again and travel to Coeur d’Alene. The other option was to finish out the trail of the Coeur d’Alene and end up camping in a small town in SE Washington. As you may have surmised, the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene does not actually pass through Coeur d’Alene, which is both surprising and disappointing.
After lots of thought we decided to abandon our beloved trail; one day we shall return to finish you, sweet Trail of the Coeur d’Alene! Like a lover we swear off after every bad encounter, only to accept them back after an apology and a box of chocolates as a truce, I-90 returned to our life. It was loud, it was uncomfortable, it was steeper than we were expecting (no one warned us about the pass we had to ride over today!), but it was the ONLY route from Cataldo to Coeur d’Alene. We exited the Interstate as fast as possible, ending up on some backroads just outside CDA. We had to sneak into a gated community behind a car, then ask a man to duck under a gate that blocked us from his private drive. He told us “I’ll let you go this once, but next time you gotta find a different way.” You got it old man, next time we’re on a cross country bike tour passing through CDA we’ll be sure to go somewhere else.
CDA is one of the fastest growing towns in America, and celebrities like the Kardashians, Justin Bieber, and Mark Wahlberg have been spotted there recently. Once you’ve seen the place you wouldn’t be surprised. It is right on the water, surrounded by mountains. The sun was shining at a perfect 70 degrees today; families were out on the beach playing in the sand, motorboats raced across the open water. We visited a bike shop to fix up Maddie’s gear shifter, which had been sticking, then went to get a late lunch at Collective Kitchen Public House. My salmon BLT was just fine, though Maddie enjoyed her burger. I went for an ice cream sandwich on chocolate chip cookies at Bear Paw cookies, but that was mediocre as well. Nonetheless, we were satiated, content, and ready for the last 35 miles to Spokane.
The Centennial Trail is a beautiful, paved rail trail that connects Spokane to CDA. We were looking forward to an easy ride to conclude our day. On our way out of CDA we admired a duo parasailing on the lake. Lost in thought, I accidentally veered off the path onto grass, and in my attempt to correct myself I ended up toppling over. My ego was bruised more than my body, and my bike was bruised most of all. The tire had been dislodged a bit, and it was now clipping the frame with every rotation. My sunglasses also shattered in the process, and my pannier got bent even further.
We knew we needed to visit a bike shop ASAP to check on my tire, so we got to the next town, Post Falls, ID, and exited the trail to hit a bike shop. The worker there corrected my issue literally in 5 seconds; it was almost embarrassing how easy the fix was. With that we were back on route after just that minor detour.
The Centennial Trail’s signage is horrendous, if you ask me. There are tons of bike trails in the area, so there are always different forks in the route, and rarely do signs make it clear which way the Centennial goes. On once such instance we did not even see the break, and continued onwards, completely unawares that we were now on a different trail entirely. We didn’t figure out our blunder until we came upon a road and realized something was up. A scenic route through Liberty Lake ensued. A beautiful area, but not one we were interested in seeing at this point. To make matters worse, once we found our way back to the Centennial, we were pelted with gnats. One flew in each of our eyes, and I caught a couple in my mouth. By the end of the ride I was incredibly frustrated. It seems the easiest days are actually the hardest, and the hardest days the easiest, for the easy days are never so easy as you might imagine, and the hard ones never so hard. Today was supposed to be easy, and thus, fell way short of my expectations and ended up feeling kind of hard.
There was no denying the beauty of much of our ride today, surrounded by pines throughout the first half and many parks and wooded areas in the second. It was the perfect day to spend all day outdoors. We passed through Gonzaga’s campus, noting the basketball arena, and crossed a bridge over the Spokane River to arrive at Russ and Anne’s house. Their son rode across the country a few years back, and they’ve done some rising theirselves, so they enjoy hosting on Warmshowers. Their house was right off the end of the Centennial, so we were overjoyed to be able to a stay with them. They served some risotto and grilled chicken for dinner, and we talked about their kids and our trip and the area’s history over dinner. Russ, especially knew a lot of the history of the region, one teeming with money from gold and silver, and a heavy tie to the Indians living in the area.
Today was our 60th day on the road! What a cool milestone to reach. As we passed from Idaho to Washington we could feel one of the final bricks coming loose from the dam that is our patience for finishing. We are so close we can taste it. No longer can we respond to “where ya headed?” with “Washington”. Instead we’ll say the coast, in less than 10 days!
-Charlie