Warden, WA to Ralston, WA - Enduring the trail for 'reasons'.

May 16 - 39 miles. 4 hours of seat time.

The showers in the clubhouse at the Lake Warden RN resort are tepid, but effective. 'Hypothermia' caused by the showers was warded off with a comfy night of sleep. Poodle, who normally tucks us in at home and then escapes to the couch in the living room, has taken to sleeping on the bed in the van all night.

The van makes Poodle nervous for some reason. She's getting more used to it, but she pants and occasionally shivers when the roads are winding around. I'd like to think that she's sleeping with us because it makes her feel more secure, but realistically, it's just the most comfortable place to hang out. Even in the morning.

Poodle watching sunrise.

I decided to give the trail a try again. Leaving Warden the trail was a little more consistent in its firmness and I started noticing these mile markers along the side of the trail. I can't recall exactly when they began, but when they got into the 1900s I realized I could take pictures at the mile markers for the birth years of friends and family. This had the benefit of giving me an excuse to stop occasionally and take a picture, but it also inadvertently committed me to riding the trail again until I'd collected a bunch of years. I suppose this means that I choose Family over Happiness, if you paid attention to the last post and my opinion of the Palouse to Cascade trail thus far.

There are a lot of these pictures. I chose this one because of the foreboding sky.

Somewhere around Pizarro, WA the weather turned, and I decided to get off the trail again and ride as fast as I could to Ralston where Bunny and Poodle were waiting for me. The last 10 miles were ridden in somewhat heavy rain and a little hail.

There were still solid bits falling from time to time after I got to the van.

Between the weather change and some other forms of strife, we decided that this was the end of this particular day. Ralson happened to have a Palouse to Cascade trailhead stop with a pit toilet and parking so we took advantage until dusk, and then moved to the little park in the heart of Ralston. Highly recommend this as a stop for bike packers.

On previous evenings we have used the Mic/Convection oven to warm up meals that were prepared at home, but tonight we finally cooked something 'from scratch'. More accurately we made a box kit of pasta with an herb sauce and enhanced it with broccoli and sausage. Not exactly gourmet, but it still proved that the kitchen in the van is functional....if tiny.

Prep work.

Induction cooktop is clean and efficient!

Sorry for the crotch shot. We'll work on staging.