Hello for Tri-Cities WA

The tri-cities area is composed of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick. We are camped in a park along the Columbia River. The river is very wide here, and it is dammed up here. The Yakima River has joined in with the Columbia, and the Snake River joins in not too far downstream.


We had a pretty easy day today, 50 miles on a slight down grade for most of the way and only one long hill climb. I felt really strong today and tried to push it a bit and was in our new camp by 11:15 a.m. We are in a shady park and it is really pleasant camping here. Each day I arrive before Julie does from her SAG duties and I get our tent out of the gear semi and have camp setup by the time she gets in. The Kennewick church welcomed us with lemonade and cookies at the park. Tomorrow, we will worship with them right next to our camp.

Some of us couldn’t wait for showers today, so we bathed in the Columbia. The shore is rocky and the water is cold, but it felt so good to get cleaned up and cooled down, even though it did not get as hot as it had been earlier in the week.

Julie got into camp just before 3:00 p.m. and caught a van shuttle going to a local health club for showers.

Tomorrow is a day off and some of us are feeling like we have had it pretty easy the past couple days. The local church people have opened their homes to a limited number of riders that want to sleep in a real bed for a couple nights. All those slots were taken. They are also offering boat rides to us and shuttle services to local malls and merchants as needed. That is great of them.

Lots of flats today but don’t have the total count yet. Besides counting flats and accidents each day in our evening peleton meeting, we have a statistic of the day….like, how many cases of beer bottles along the way, or how many and what kind of creatures were spotted, dead or alive, number of semis we met, etc. I made my suggestion of statistic of the day to Chaplain Len who leads the meeting, and said that I had counted a dime and later two pennies along the bike edge today and that even more amazing, being Dutch, or more specifically Frisian, is that I did not stop to pick them up. Chaplain Len, who is quite the card, said that HE DID!!, at least the dime…..he said there is a limit to what he will stoop for and figures he must need it more than everyone else!!

Love to all. P & J.