Day 58

 48 Miles
My alarm went off early. I woke Lily up and we got ready. I was quite excited. I was going to climb a mountain with my bike! We were the first of the cyclists that had camped in the park to leave. The ride started with a brief downhill. Then it was all uphill. I didn't mind the ride.  The mountain was wooded and I enjoyed the shade. There was a slight breeze between the trees. I liked the smell of woods and there were plenty of babbling mountain brooks to appease my ears. The logging trucks increased as I climbed. This was of course because the logging roads increased higher up the mountain. I couldn't really hear the trucks until they were almost next to me. I could feel them right before they rattled next to me.Then I left the smell of wet cedar wafting behind them. There was a tinge of orange to the aroma.
  I was doing pretty well. I'd been riding uphill nearly an hour. I thought I must have been getting close to the top. I wasn't. I was about 9 miles into my ride. I saw a sign for deer for the next 7 miles. The top had to be there. My calculations were still off. There were pull-offs for slower traffic. Did you know it is illegal to hold up more than 5 cars in traffic in Washington state? It is apparently so.
About 20 miles into my ride, still climbing mind you, I spotted in my rear view mirror a speck, a yellow speck. The yellow speck was catching up to me. It was Joe climbing the hill at pace slightly faster than mine. This was good incentive for me to just keep pedaling. Sometimes I sang to myself "Just keep pedaling. Just keep pedaling." I wanted to make it to the top before Joe. It was a bit of a pride thing. I wanted to keep up my pace. I didn't want to stop pedaling. I didn't want to stop at all.
At about 26 miles there was an overlook. I opted against pedaling to it. It was straight on to the summit for me.
I made it to the pull off at the summit. It was cold up there. I pulled out my long sleeve button up. Lily wasn't at the summit. It took me almost 4 hours to climb the 26 miles. My pace was slow to say the least. I wondered where Lily was. Maybe she was at the overlook. I wasn't going to ride down just to ride back up again, even if it was only about a quarter of a mile. I ate and read the historical facts about the region.
Eventually Lily rode up. She had been at the overlook waiting for me.
We took pictures of each other next to the Sherman Pass sign. After another quick snack we set off down the mountain. I wasn't far behind Lily; at 30+ mph I really had no reason to be. The curves were fun and I raced down the mountain grinning. The views were gorgeous. I pulled off at one of the overlooks. The area I was looking at had been devastated by forest fires in the 80s. It was a sad sight, but beautiful just the same. I rode a little slower down the mountain taking it all in.
At the bottom of the mountain was a cute little town with a genuine western feel. I couldn't find Lily at the usual stops. The convenience stores were void of her and Juno. After riding up and down the main strip once or twice I decided to stop moving. Then I saw the library. Of course, that's where she'd be! She was. After she finished at the library we went and did laundry. It was a tiny laundromat with no coin machine or soap vending. We used camp soap, put our quarters together, and did a load of laundry. My clothes smelled like peppermint.

I had made it to town before 2 pm. A short day was in order. We heard about free camping in this town. So we looked around. We found a park. It was busy, but there was a pavilion. The sun was hot. Lily seemed out of sorts and grumpy. I was still pumped from the ride. I suggested maybe getting a pizza or something. It meant no cooking. We deserved a treat. We crossed a freaking mountain! So we got a pizza. And we ate all of it.
Lily still a bit out of it went in search of ice cream. She came back without ice cream and with information. We were not at the park that had free camping. That park was really the fairgrounds about 2 miles back from where we'd come. Reluctantly, we rode back the 2 miles. Joe and all three Dutch men were there. We set up. I scrounged up the rest of my quarters. I took a shower. Then I went to bed. Did I mention I rode up a mountain?