Rest Day in Walla Walla

Colville Street Patisserie dessert case

We had a nice rest day in Walla Walla, WA.  It is nice little college town with lots of winery tasting rooms in the well maintained downtown area.  At Heidi's recommendation, a number of the group went to the Colville Street Patisserie.  The pastries seemed to be right out of France and the desserts looked unbelievable.  Most of the day was taken up with doing laundry, running to the bike shop and everybody taking care of personal things while we had the chance.  

It also gave Hank, our cook, a much needed day off from feeding us.  He actually spends more time setting up and tearing down his cooking equipment and moving ice chests than cooking.  He is becoming very frustrated and more than a few of us are concerned he may quit.  The group is tossing around some ideas to make his life more manageable by packing our own lunches at breakfast and not having him set up for lunch.  This is the first time BIKEternity has run a coast-to-coast trip and there are some bugs to work out.

Food trucks in the park

For dinner, a few of us went to a local park for a "Food Truck Night" which was a good alternative to a restaurant, but I had flashbacks to RAGBRAI (ride across Iowa).  But at least there weren't 20,000 people in the park!

Today, we head into the mountains.  The next couple of days will be some of the more difficult riding days with 68 miles and 4000' of climbing followed by 71 mile and 5280' of climbing.  The week in general will be a good workout as we make our way to Missoula, MT for our next rest day on Monday (5/7)

Beth and I rode the route the final two days into Missoula back in 2013 on our ride across the country.  It is remote area mostly following the Lochsa River up to Lolo Pass then a big downhill ride into the Missoula area.  While remote, it is a very pretty area.