Centennial Trail -- Coeur D'Alene, ID

This is Part 3 of an 8-part blog series chronicaling a 7-day road trip, during which we were able to achieve riding our bikes in 8 different states toward our goal of riding in all 50 states. 

Links to all posts:

Day 1: South Dakota

Day 2: Montana

Day 3: Idaho

Day 4: Washington and Oregon

Day 5: Utah

Day 6: Wyoming and Colorado

Day 7: No rides or posts, just finished driving the rest of the way home. 

The Grand Adventure continues

Day 3:

We started the day at 7:00 am in Missoula, MT headed west with our final destination being Bellingham, WA.   There was a mixture of clouds and rain as we headed out.  

There appeared to be some remnants of a fire that recently burned right up near I-90 not too far out of Missoula. 

It was September rain in our case as we rocked out to GNR on Hair Nation on our satellite radio.   

We had cussed and discussed riding the 'Route of the Hiawatha' trail and even had it as one of our trails we wanted to ride on this blog.   My Sweetie is fearful of heights and has expressed she was not comfortable riding those high bridges.  When it came right down to it the weather made our decision for us.  It was pouring rain as we passed the exit for it near Taft, MT.    We crossed our fingers that the weather would clear before our alternate Idaho ride.   

There was construction starting right at the Idaho line so the welcome sign was non-existent.   We just got ugly orange barrels.    

A steep descent at a slow pace behind a semi!

Always makes you feel good when you're on a road with Runaway Truck Ramps! Especially when they're inaccessible due to construction! Doh!

As we passed the town of Mullan, ID we noticed a paved trail paralleling the Interstate. Looked to be a bit steeper than we wanted to tackle. Turns out it is a 71-mile paved trail! More details can be found here.   Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes

Around 11 am we arrived at Lake Coeur D'Alene, the location of our Idaho ride.  The Google Maps GPS took us to the Rutledge Trailhead where I had marked to park.

 

Here we are in front of the trailhead sign for the North Idaho Centennial Trail along Coeur d'Alene Lake in northern Idaho before beginning our ride. 

The bridge in the background is I-90 that we came into Coeur D'Alene on.   Not sure my Sweetie was real excited to see how high we had been up on that bridge. 

Seems I don't know my own strength as I was just riding along peacefully and decided to accelerate to catch up with the wife and broke my chain, which led to a few expletives being uttered! It took a bit before sweetie realized I had a problem. When she finally turned around she rode up asking "what's wrong", to which I exclaimed you know it's always an adventure with me as my chain has broken. She then joined in the uttering of some expletives! 

As usual I choose to break bike parts at long distances from our vehicle.   We were 4.47 miles from our van,  with a steep 6% grade hill between us and the van.    

My sweet wife rode all the way back to the trailhead to get the van,  loaded up her bike all by herself and came back and picked me up.   I did start walking as soon as she left and actually climbed back to the top of the steep hill we had ridden over and actually got to coast the bike back down the steep hill.  On the MapMyRide map that will be at the bottom of the page you will be able to see the speed I attained on that coast down! :D    

Here are some scenic pictures of the trail as we rode along.

 

 

Going up!

Going down!

 

 

All in all it was a nice ride with beautiful scenery.   Just wish it had not been cut short!  Only complaint was the removal of safety barrier for rider and walker protection during the most dangerous portion of the trail.   The blind curve filled hilly section they routed us on was just a wide shoulder of the road.  That part gets a major thumbs down and also led to some expletives on the video that hopefully got edited out! :D   ~S

(It did......)  ~H



After our ride on the Centennial Trail we packed up and headed west again, soon crossing into Washington!

We met up for lunch in Spokane with a former work supervisor and on-line friend of Mrs. Just Keep Pedaling. It was very special having the opportunity to meet face-to-face after so many years of knowing each other through our computers screens.



After lunch, it was back in the van and more driving.



We continued westward across the state of Washington, destination Bellingham.



So, there really is a town named "George, Washington"?



After miles of rather arid, almost-desert-like terrain in mid-Washington, it was back into the mountains.



We also enjoyed getting to scoot almost the entire way through Seattle using the carpool lane.


Arrived in Bellingham at about supper time.  Found a smoothie shop that sufficed for supper after our large lunch, then checked into our hotel and called it a night.

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Video of our ride: