Day 5 Okanogan to Tonasket

Today it’s all about roads & people. We started out early to beat the heat but not early enough to beat some of the dogs who wanted to chase us! We started on a side road which had little traffic. It was littered with beer bottles and so much broken glass. Good thing we didn’t have much traffic because we could not always stay on the shoulder safely. We then were greeted by large dogs in two separate locations. One place, the dogs came from either side of us. We took the whole road and spoke gruffly to them to get them to back off. Next town was quaint and off the road. We then got back on to Highway 20 to have road construction. After waiting about twenty minutes, we got a special ride in the pilot car around the road construction. The best part was it kept the traffic off the road for long periods of time.

The second part is about all the amazingly kind people we meet. The construction crew was great & chatted with us before we got our special escort. Then we arrived at our destination. Shannon’s Place in Tonasket, WA. I had called ahead because it was mentioned in the Adventure Cycling map as place to camp. It is a local Mecca for the town people and we met three more cross country cyclists. One man is going from Seattle to the Florida Keys! Another gal is doing a solo trip from Sun Valley through the whole Northwest, down the Oregon coast & back to Idaho. People are just relaxed and friendly; everybody has a story & they are encouraging. I will end with my laundry mat experience. Not always my favorite place but a huge necessity on this trip as we have limited room to carry clothes or extra riding gear. Our stuff gets dirty and smelly quick!!!! Today is really hot so you get the picture. I am in the laundry mat and a man who lives up in the hills engages me in a conversation. We chat. Then a lady comes over thanking me for talking to him. I just said, he needed someone to talk to and listen to him. The next thing I know is she is asking me about her knee injury. She pulls up her skirt, shows me her knee & asks my advice. She knew nothing about me, but said she thought bicyclists would know what to do about this. Phew, I politely told her to ice it & knew Jon was over on the deck enjoying a beer. I hurried back to the wonderful deck at Shannon’s Place. 

Rhonda