SR 21 near Moses Lake. My Mother used to say, "This sure is a long road."
SR 21 near Moses Lake. My Mother used to say, "This sure is a long road."
Last Modified on 9/3/97 at 3:48:12
Day's Narrative: This morning when I woke up the wind was blowing about 25 mph out of the northeast. That was fine with me. It would give me a tailwind. I rode the tailwind into Moses Lake, 20 miles down the road. Then, as so often happens after the sun has been up for a while, the wind died down. Still, I covered the 20 miles in good time -- just under an hour. The area here is called the Columbia River Basin, and is heavily irrigated. It appears that just about anything grows; corn, wheat, and potatoes are the most obvious. From Moses Lake I took State Road 21 toward Ritzville. It parallels Interstate 90 going the remaining 50 miles into Ritzville. There was almost no traffic. I was cycling along thinking about everything and at the same time really nothing. Caroline Spaeth, who wrote the Los Alamos Monitor article about this ride, asked me what I thought about on those long lonely stretches of road, and I couldn't answer her. This was one of those times. I rode up onto a collection of buildings. There were two men sitting atop a wall of a house they were building. I waved as usual as I was passing them by and one shouted. "Stop and come over here so we can talk to you!" So I shouted back "OK", and got off the bike and walked across the dirt lot to where we could talk without shouting. They wanted to know where I came from, where I was going and all the details. They had a strange accent, almost Scandinavian, which I couldn't place. They were not building a house, but rather a new truck scale for their potato warehouse next door. We talked for 15 minutes or so until I said I had to get on to Ritzville. They told me the last 16 miles of my route down SR 21 was closed, as it was to be repaved on Monday. So I said OK, because I wanted to go to the Interstate 90 interchange anyway to get something to eat. I could ride on the Interstate shoulder to Ritzville. The said there aren't any stores there. The nearest stores are in Ritzville. Well, I did have one more Power Bar and two packages of cheese and crackers. I had filled up both water bottles in Moses Lake, so I was OK with water. Thanking them for the information, I started riding again. As soon as I passed the buildings there was a sign to a Mennonite church. That was the accent! I ate my Power Bar and cheese crackers under the Interstate overpass at I-90, and then rode the interstate shoulder into Ritzville, arriving about 12:20. At the Ritzville exit I went to the first restaurant, Jake's Family Restaurant. Before I could even order, the cell phone vibrated against my back. As I took it out and answered it, I got some strange smiles from the other customers. It was Connie asking where I was. She was about to start down SR 21 looking for me. I told her that I was already in Ritzville and that she should take the interstate. She got there just as I was finishing lunch. Two days in a row now we have successfully used the cell phones to link up at the end of the day. Yesterday Connie called me from Ephrata and told be the motel we were staying at, and how to find it. This was the shortest riding day so far, being less than 70 miles. Things are going well, but we are talking about taking a day off in Spokane. We should get there tomorrow. I'm reluctant to stop for a day since the weather is beautiful, with the temperature in the low 80's, no wind and no rain. Today was the first day with no flats. [Connie] I had done my usual "get lost" two or three times in Moses Lake trying to find the SR 21 or highway 17 as I was following it. It wasn't marked with a number on the map, so who knows what it was. It wasn't as bad as my experience in Georgia, since if I turned around to come back to a place from the opposite direction, it was still the same place, unlike Georgia where it would be another town, county or suddenly even another state . It's a straight shot across Washington, how can one get lost? Moral of the story -- go on the Interstate and just get there. It took me 2.4 hours and 101.6 miles to do what Ray did in 66.6 miles and 7.08.06 hours. It's the interstate tomorrow for me. Today was also laundry day, as the motel has an on-site laundromat. Maybe tomorrow in Spokane, we will get my bike out so I can try riding some. © Ray & Connie Poore, 1997
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