It was great to see the sun and blue sky today! It’s been quite a while since the weather forecast was for sun and near normal temperatures. I left Lewiston today refreshed after a day of rest and in a good mood because I knew I was going to stay dry.

Within a couple miles of the start of the ride today, I crossed the Snake River into Washington state. Washington becomes our forty-fifth state that we have visited on The Dream Tour. Only three more now!

About twelve miles into the ride today, just as I was starting a twelve mile climb up to 2800 feet in elevation, a car approached from the west, slowed, and asked if I had a colorful van up ahead. I said I did. He told me that it was pulled over because it had overheated on the climb and a state trooper was assisting. I thanked him for the information and tried calling Pat on the cellphone. No luck there because I had no signal in this canyon with steep cliffs on each side. So, I redoubled my pace so I could get to Pat as soon as possible.

Ten miles of climbing later, I was overheating too, trying to get to Pat. I was trying to unzip my outer layer and having some difficulty with it when I rounded a corner and saw the BayerMobile. No smoke, no tow truck, no fire truck, and Pat was giving me a cheerful wave, so I figured that things were not as bad as I had imagined in the last hour of riding.

Yesterday, as is our routine on a rest day, we caught up on things like laundry, shopping, bike maintenance, and car maintenance. We took the car to one of those oil change places. The one we ended up at was one of those national chains and we assumed (incorrectly it turns out) that they could trusted to do some maintenance on the BayerMobile. One of the workers came into the waiting area about 10 minutes later to show me the air filter (it was OK) and to report that the radiator fluid level was a bit low. I asked him to top it off and that, I’m guessing, was the source of the trouble. They must have failed to replace the radiator cap. Pat said that when she opened the hood of the car today, the cap was sitting on a level spot on the engine right next to the radiator. I suppose we’re lucky that the radiator cap was still there at all. If it wasn’t, I’d be telling you a very different story right now.

Luckily, a good samaritan (wearing dress-up cowboy clothes with a huge belt buckle, Pat says) and a Washington state trooper stopped by to help Pat. After the engine had cooled off, they took all of the water Pat had in the car (about a gallon) and put it into the radiator. They replaced the radiator cap, checked it about four times, tested it by starting the engine, and then left Pat to wait for me to arrive.

The funny thing about all this was that just yesterday, Pat and I were talking about the extra, unexpected, expense of a new water heater at home. We were wondering how it would fit into our budget and Pat exclaimed something to the effect of “All we need now is for something to happen to the car!”

We were very lucky the way it all turned out though. There was no extra expense and no layover to have the car fixed; just an hour or so of waiting for the car to cool off and later a nasty call to the oil change place that we went to yesterday.

We intended to ride all the way to Waitsburg today. Pat called me mid-afternoon to report that there was no lodging in Waitsburg. She suggested Dayton, ten miles closer than Waitsburg, as an alternative. It sounded good to me. By the time I arrived in Dayton, Pat had checked into a motel, unpacked the car, and was out for a walk on Main Street in Dayton. It was such a nice day! She flagged me down to hand me the motel key and give me directions to the motel.

Dayton, Washington is turning out to be a very nice little town of 2700. As I rode through downtown, I saw several restaurants that looked like possibilities for dinner. One looked to be fairly formal dining establishment which is something we haven’t seen very often in the little towns that we’ve been travelling through.

We ended up eating at a place called the Skye Book and Brew. As it turns out, Friday nights they have live entertainment! As we were ordering dinner, a couple of guys came in the front door, both were carrying musical instruments of various kinds — guitar, mandolin, violin, harmonica, and who knows what else. They promptly sat down on the stage next to the front door, set themselves up, and started playing. So often during The Dream Tour, we eat dinner solely for nourishment. It was a very nice change to have dinner and be entertained at the same time.

Total distance:	70.87 miles
Time:	6:03:23
Average speed:	11.7 mph
Maximum speed:	29.4 mph
Total calories:	4774
Average heart rate:	119 bpm
Maximum heart rate:	159 bpm
Total ascent:	3625 feet
Total descent:	3181 feet
Ride profile:	(click on image to view a larger version)
Ride comments: There was some fog and clouds as I left Lewiston and along the Snake River. Two big climbs today, one with grades up to 10%. Other than that, it was a fairly flat ride in the valleys of southeast Washington.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 8:49 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.