Day 59

 74 miles
My alarm went off early. Lily heard it, and talked from her tent. She told me she had a terrible headache and maybe we could sleep a bit longer. I was happy to oblige. I got up around 8. I checked on Lily. I dug out my headache medicine to help ease her migraine. I ate and packed up slow. Lily told me I didn't need to wait on her. But that seemed silly. It was almost 10 when Lily finally felt ready to set out for the day.
It was warming up quickly but the air was dry.  The first few miles didn't involve much climbing. When the climbing started Lily was only a little bit ahead of me. But I caught up to her. She was pulled off the road. Juno had a flat. What a morning for her! I waited until she had it patched and was getting her wheel back on before I set back up the mountain. She still beat me to the top. I wasn't far behind this time. This climb wasn't bad. It went fairly quickly. My visit to Wauconda Pass was brief. At 4310 ft elevation it was the easiest pass I would ride. We started down the mountain. There was quite a bit of wind. We stopped by a small store/cafe a bit past the pass.We ate a long lunch there. Lily was feeling better but still felt the affects of her migraine. I could relate.
We continued down the mountain. The scenery was great. It varied from desert to plains to rocky peaks. There were lots of abandon homes and farms. The landscape lent more to the "Old West" feel that I had been experiencing. I never realized how "Old West" Washington was. I enjoyed some great downhill. It was curvy and fast. It was almost like a really long roller-coaster. I grinned the whole way. I took the lane when I could and enjoyed the pedal free ride.
The town at the bottom offered another short stop. I enjoyed a sugary soda. Yum. I don't care if it's commercial and cliche. There is nothing like an ice cold Coca-Cola after a long ride. So refreshing. We decided to keep riding. We had a small tail wind.
The scenery provided more desert landscape and towering hills. I enjoyed the view thoroughly. The road was freshly paved. But there were tires blown and strewn about everywhere. I passed the town of Omak. It was busy as the local tradition of the Omak Stampede was going on. There was lots of camping, but it was full up and looked pretty rowdy. I continued on. Lily slowed down and we started looking for a place in the next town. We had heard that there was free camping in the next town. We asked a local and he directed us to go into town and across the river. This seemed reasonable. We set out. Before rolling into town I had to get off the bike. I had a flat. I couldn't help but laugh. Upstate always had to do what Juno did. I decided to just walk the two miles to the park instead of changing the tire along the way. Lily offered to walk with me. But I thought it was silly. She eventually rode on. I ran into my Dutch friends and spoke to them a bit. They pointed me to the park. When I finally arrived at the park Lily was all set up. She was sitting at the picnic table with her patch kit ready. To repay me for being so kind in the morning when she had her migraine she wanted to repair my tire for me. I wasn't going to complain. However, the inner tube had not one hole, but two. This meant that after the repair we both were without patches. We were three days from the coast. What were the chances of another flat anyway? I thanked Lily repeatedly.
As the sun set there was also a storm in the distance. This of course made a rainbow. It was an incredibly bright rainbow. The angle of the setting sun made it look like the rainbow was shooting straight out of the mountain over yonder. It was a beautiful ending to the day.