Day 8 August 10 Lenice Lake to Othello

Interactive Map: Click on the map

Photos: At the bottom of the page

This was the most difficult day of the entire trip.

Peter had another flat right after we started in the morning. Then another one. Fixing flats is usually not a big deal. But with fully loaded bags and under a scorching sun, it is very draining. You have to constantly drink water. This, the heat, and the slow riding pace soon depleted our carried water. Luckily, we found a farmhouse near Royal City (there was no city!). The owner gave us cold bottled water and even a Gatorade. With many thanks to him we continued.

There was no shade along the trail or road. All shrubs, no tree. We found a big cliff that casted a shadow on the road. We stopped for a few minutes and decided to take a long rest at a gas station the farmer mentioned. We continued and the gas station never showed up (it must have been on a different road). We were fully exposed to the sun and heat for hours without seeing any people although farm/ranch lands were always on the roadside. We stopped at a ranch gate. Again, no shade. I started feeling lethargic for the first time since we started from La Push.

We pressed on and finally reached a nice boulevard with trees on both sides leading to a mansion. We decided to have a long rest here, but we had to get water. Peter felt nausea and had to lay down. I was worried that he had a heat stroke. I peddled to the mansion but no one answered the door. Tried the sprinklers. No water. The mansion appeared to be abandoned.

After laying on the ground (with a thick pine needle layer) for 30-45 min, Peter felt better. After more rest, water and snacks, we decided to move on. That was when he realized his rear tire was flat. This was his fourth flat in 2 days. While he fixed the flat, I rode to a house a quarter of mile down the road to find water. No one was at home. I found a hand pump and pumped up water to fill empty bottles. As I was leaving the, the owner came back. I asked him whether the pumped ground water is drinkable, he answered “I think so”. Sounded like he does not drink the pumped ground water.

Got back to where Peter was, and googled about the ground water quality in the region. Online advice from other riders was not to self-filter river water to drink. Still not sure about ground water, we decided that any metals in the water wouldn’t kill us. It was bacteria that we had to worry about. So we broiled the water in the middle of the road (there was no traffic at all) to stay away from any burnable ground leaves and needles. We joked about two meteorologists (well, 1.5, and 0.5 oceanographer) started the historical 2025 Othello wildfire.

It took a while for the broiled water to cool down in an air of 100F plus. Meanwhile we decided to stay in a hotel in Othello to recover from the physical and mental fatigue. Made a hotel reservation (thanks to cell service), we started again. Soon after, Peter found out his front tire pressure was low. Instead of fixing it, he decided to pump it and ride until the next time more air was needed. It was a slow leak. With this riding and stopping we inched towards Othello.

It would have been super nice if that was it. We followed the planned route to get off a main road to a local road that led to a neighborhood where we were chased by many dogs, some of them big German shepherds with vicious roaring barks. I used my Dog Dazer, a device that sends out low-frequency sound human can’t hear; dogs can but they don’t like it. It worked, but only for big dogs. Small dogs ignored it and kept chasing. I had to kick them away when they were too close to me (couldn’t do it to big dogs). Meanwhile, Peter was trying to sweet talk to them “Hey baby, how are you?”

After the dog zone we came upon a private property with a No Trespassing sign. It turned out to be a dead end. We had to reverse and go through the dog zone the second time. More sweet talks from Peter.

We ran out of water again. Stopped at a house and asked a teenage girl in the yard if we could have some water. She looked at us, kept typing on her cell phone, didn’t say a single word, went inside the house, and didn’t come out again. Precaution, we figured. Who wants to deal with two beaten-up bikers with funny bags strapped all over their bikes? Found another house. The owner (a man, Tolen) gave us four cooled bottled water and refused my offer to buy them.

We moved on. With more stopping and pumping we finally arrived at Othello Inn & Suite. It took 12 hours to cover 36.6 miles, my slowest ride ever! At that point I decided to take the next day to rest and reassess. We couldn’t have another day like this.

We had dinner at Guadalajara (recommended by Tolen). After a chiles rellenos and three beers (Coronas and Modelo), I was a happy man again.