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Video 1: Climbing in a wheat field
Chilly in the morning again. We rolled out of St John and soon were on unpaved roads that turned into impossible to ride with deep loose dirt. We pushed our bikes through. The roads were made for and used by heavy agricultural vehicles (combines, tractors, grain trucks). We saw them in action. We thought we were perhaps the only bikers ever who were on these roads. Scary thoughts also went through my mind: What if our bikes broke here?! Another major problem was there was nowhere we could get water when it ran out. Meanwhile, the vast wheat fields over the rolling hills were breathtaking.
This rough dirt road extended for 20 miles on and off before we got on Oaksdale Rd which was paved. We managed to cover the distance we planned to. I have noticed the perpetual cricket calling song from both sides of the road. It was exciting to cross the state line into ID. We considered this our second accomplishment on the trip (the first was crossing the Columbia River).
From Plummer ID we started to ride on the Trail of Coeur d’Alenes. It gave a completely different feeling with trees on the sides, in contrast to the wheat land in eastern WA. We camped next to the Chatcolet Lake in ID under a big oak tree.
Chidong Zhang's WA2MA Bike Trip 