June 1, Wednesday Winthrop to Tonasket WA

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/91947563
   We had a beautiful day today with sunshine, warmer temperatures and we even got to take our coats off and ride in short sleeves. As we were about to leave more populated areas to start up to today's pass, we stopped at a veterinary clinic to see if we could use their restroom and they complied with our weird request. 
   The one picture shows fire damage in the national forest we went through on our way up, and the snow covered Cascades in the distance that we crossed through yesterday . We went through miles and miles of burned trees.  It was a long steady grade up and we just kept pedaling and pedaling and pedaling and pedaling, not very fast but we got to top, estimate about 5% grade for 10 miles.  Then hooray! We got to go downhill on dry roads this time, so for about 10 miles we averaged about 30 mph; it was just a fun time. 
   It is amazing how yesterday's ride area gets so much rainfall and the area we were in today in the rain shadow is very arid and nothing is green unless  you have irrigation or it is a plant like sagebrush. 
   Today was a first for our trip--the first ice cream cone. It's been so cold we hadn't even had any ice cream yet.
  In Riverside, a small town, there's a park with a public bathroom but you have to get the key from the store across the street.  Try as we might, we couldn't get the key to unlock the door. Then a 10 to 12 year old boy in the park said he knew how and tried to help us but he couldn't get it either. then a woman named Riley she said, "I know how to do it" and she opened it up for us. We had a fun time chatting with her. One of the boys saw a snake and captured it. Last we saw they had released it and it crawled under the bathroom door...
   In Tonasket the the proprietor of the motel we're staying in is 82 years old. He ran in 1987 Long Island Marathon.  He is sort of a silly kind of guy and we just had fun time chatting and talking  about how old Jim looks and how young Kay looks.  He told us there's somebody else here who is also biking cross country and tapped on the guy's door so we could meet him. So we ate dinner at a local grill with Ed from Santa Barbara, a retired firefighter, and had a fun time comparing notes. He's heading to Virginia also, but taking a little bit different route than we are.  We ended up finishing our dinner late and we and Ed got to the grocery store about 4 minutes before it closed and made some quick purchases so we have food for tomorrow as  there's no breakfast at this motel.  

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