Day 13: Springy Point CG to Camp Coeur d’ Alene

June 29, 2023

Navigation

Today is Friday, and we have decided to take an unexpected layover day at Camp Coeur d’Alene after Thursday’s ride from Sandpoint.

Thursday:

Yesterday was actually a pretty good riding day with some interesting navigation. We did not originally plan to stay at Springy CG, so we needed to change our route slightly to accommodate for the change; well, we should have spent a bit more time thinking about the route because we ended up back at the detour from the day before…This meant a few more miles but it was manageable, so we did more than I posted, but that seems routine at this point. We were using Google Maps with Gigi navigating; we call the narrating feature Gigi - we use the “she” pronoun for Gigi…like Siri. I think Gigi has it in for us because she has lead us astray a few times on this trip; she knows we like dirt, so she keeps challenging us with interesting routes.

Why didn’t we use our Garmin for the route that Mike had already researched…? I don’t know; probably because we were off course to start. We are having to manage battery power in all our devices, so that comes into play as the Garmin is old and runs out of power within six hours, so we resort to the phone. We did download GPX tracks, and now we are back on our route, so we can also use our phones more.

After making our way around the detour, we had some nice backcountry roads. Lakeshore Drive from Springy was really pleasant; we did have to hop on US 95 for a bit, but there was an ample shoulder. Soon after, however, we were able to deviate to the Old 95 route, which paralleled 95 most of the way. Eventually, outside of Hawthorn, Idaho - not far from Coeur d’Alene, we picked up a bike path that followed the freeway. Then, I think Gigi thought we were getting too comfortable so she threw us on surface streets in a business district with no shoulder, lots of shopping traffic where cars were often making turns in and out of businesses in front of us…never fun. Anyway, we made it to the waterfront of Coeur d’ Alene, and that was very pleasant. It is similar to Sandpoints’ but not as scenic. After using the bathroom and getting water, we were routed on the North Idaho Centennial Trail; it followed Lake Coeur d’ Alene. The trail is twenty-three miles long extending from Idaho/Washington state line to Higgins Point. Things got interesting at Higgins…if we had used the Garmin, we would have left the trail earlier, but Gigi needed to mixed things up and routed us on a narrow trail, like a goat trail, which paralleled the highway then into a neighborhood which lead to Yellowstone Trail 17, a gravel road. This is not as bad as it sounds. We are used to doing gravel on the bikes and actually have a bit of it coming up on our journey through Idaho and Montana. After a couple miles of gravel, we were back on pavement and not far from camp.

Once at camp, we drank our beers, ate dinner, socialized with some nice folks from Montana and Wisconsin, and tried to figure out the next few days…fluidity is the name of the game here. We did have an “oh shit” moment this morning when we thought it was going to take us 71 days to get to our final destination, but then I realized I did not subtract the days we already did…dah! This all started because we decided to take this layover, and wondered if we were ready for one and whether we could afford it considering that there might be places we might like better, or because we may have to take unexpected ones due to whether or other circumstances. Well, here we are; decision made, and we will live with it. We have water, a pool, fire pit, nice people and a lake to swim in; sounds pretty good. The only problem is that we did not anticipate this and did not plan to have food for this stay. Figuring out how to get food and how much to carry is always an issue, and that we are headed into Grizzly country is another; we need to fit all of our smelly items into our Urs Sack, bear bag, as some of the more remote campsites do not have beer boxes - why not??? We are not opposed to storing food in the bathroom; we have done this before, but still. Well, we perused the camp store with its meager supplies and have come up with a menu for this. I think dinner will work out just fine. I will let you know tomorrow.

Chilling,

Team Bean

Tour Stats