2014 Big Truck across the NW, Day 8

One of the best things about these trips is how different each day or location is from the previous one. Today we found ourselves basically in the middle of a very active city, so we took advantage of it.

I started off the morning with a little bike ride along the North Idaho Centennial Trail. I would now like to indulge in a brief photo essay I call 'My bike leaning on stuff'.

Our campground from the other side of the channel

At McEuen park

Commemorative trail marker

Where's Waldo shot from the east end of the lake

Self explanatory

Crossing the bridge over the Spokane River

If you're into that kind of thing, ride stats are posted on the right side of the blog under the Strava sidebar. I did manage to do 37.1mph in a 35mph zone, passing a roadie in full aero gear (whose age & gender shall remain anonymous to make me feel better) on my dump truck of a bike.

Near the end of my ride, I stumbled across this open area that brought me back to being a kid, exploring the mean streets (fields, actually) of Dorr on my BMX.

If you think there weren't Helltrack drop-ins and many other shenanigans attempted here by a somewhat grown man on a larger version of a BMX, you are mistaken.

If you also think I won't take this opportunity to crowbar in a RAD clip, you are again mistaken.

Back at the campground, Jordan and Kimberly were checking out the beach and Jordan was working on her own biking skills.

Here she is directing the construction of an elaborate aqueduct system with simple and primitive hand tools.

I had seen Jordan's holy grail while on my bike ride, so after the beach I took her down to the city park to play on this.

Full sensory overload - kids were freaking out, running around not even knowing where to start. Luckily we had planned ahead, because right next door to this playground was...

a splash pad, equally massive. We spent a fair amount of time here, then it was back to the playground where she literally played until she collapsed in the grass, begging to be carried back to the Jeep. I'm sure 500 rotations in this thing didn't help.

While I was killing time, I noticed this. I think it's a mail plane.

Once we returned to the campground, Jordan made sure her old standbys Walter & Giraffe (they've been on all the big truck trips since the start) had run of the place while I worked on the AC unit.

Since it had been about 500 degrees Kelvin the past couple of days, the AC froze up and was limping along like my old single-bladed ceiling fan at the Union house. Once I figured it out, cleaned the filter and thawed out the coils, we were back in business. Good thing, as I was about to roll out straight tightie whities (hint - DO NOT GOOGLE SEARCH!!) as my next option.

As I mentioned yesterday, we honored Idaho's greatest export by having family movie night, Jordan's first full viewing of Napoleon Dynamite. I believe she is hooked, and may be sporting a Deb-tribute side ponytail soon.

Tomorrow - 5 hr drive through the mountains to North Cascades NP, then on to Seattle.