Dayton, Wash. to Lewiston, Idaho

I fell in love with the town of Dayton, Washington. It is the County seat for Columbia County but is a very small town. The place feels like something out of the past. The drug store has the original soda fountain with all the old seats from another building in town that burned down. The drug store owner is from Rochester and worked for Kodak at one time! All the buildings are old and well preserved. The old hotel is very glamorous complete with this wonderful piano player who use to play as a young woman in big bands during WWII. Every car stops for pedestrians, everyone says hello, just a lovely place. The pictures show main street, the hotel lobby where we enjoyed the music and the house I stayed in while in Dayton.

We started for Lewiston around 7Am because it was going to be a 70 mile day and it was cool and pleasant. We basically picked up where we left off heading east on route 12. We have been following the Lewis and Clark bicycle trail for some of the trip and will be leaving this route soon. The road was good and we continued to see the wheat fields and rolling hills. We initially had a tail wind but eventually the wind hit us from all sides. We had one climb between 4-6% and a long downhill which was very challenging because of the crosswinds. Around mile 50 we started our 2.6 mile climb up to Alpowa Pass, appox. 2719'. It got cooler the higher we climbed but it was a nice steady climb 3-5%. I really enjoyed this climb. (Even Pastor Ray would like this one!). At the top of the pass there were signs to truckers to check their brakes and be aware that there were several truck runaway chutes. Fifteen miles downhill! The girls who like to go fast never braked once because of the headwinds. Luckily for me and my over braked bike, the headwinds helped to slow me down. The rest of the ride was delightful with stops for grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and Baskin and Robbins milkshakes (recovery drink). We are staying at the Comfort Inn tonight and my roommate is Peg from Seattle. Today's stats: 78.49 miles, 5 hours 43 min., avg. 13.7, fastest speed 36.3, total miles since we started 390.48. Tomorrow is a long day -90 miles to Kamiah, ID.