Safe Return Doubtful

55 miles (88 km) – Total so far: 195 miles (314 km)

Much quicker on packing up this morning, and the local rumour was not to miss breakfasts at the Rocking Horse Bakery. It opened at 7 and I was waiting at the door, but it was well worth it. Proper coffee for a change also.

The temperature is ideal at that time and the riding was straight forward down the river to Twisp. From there the climb began, about 800 metres mostly at 6%. I was at the top, this is the 3rd of the 5 Washington – Northen Tier passes, the Loup Loup. It was a much quieter road than the passes yesterday, just probably because it’s a bit further from Seattle. It’s a fast downhill, I topped out at 40 mph, into Okanogan. The town wasn’t what I had expected. It’s down on its luck it seems, lots of stores closed down and several fairly rough looking mobile home parks. There is free camping at the City Park here and it looked tempting, by the river and well-shaded. My idea had been to stop here, because already the temperature was up and the last 10 miles had been into a decent northerly wind, again, like a hair dryer. But in the grocery store the woman who offered to watch my bike warned me off it. I have come across this free city park camping before and similarly it can b unsafe to leave your stuff for any amount of time.

Reluctantly I rode on to Omak. 3 miles on but the same sort of place. It’s where the wonderful route 20 that I have been following meets the 97 for 30 miles or so heading north towards Kamloops, Canada. I kept going heading for Riverside 10 miles on. This was the toughest and least pleasant riding of the day. Mid thirties now and into the wind and traffic at huge speed.

However it was well worth it. Margies RV Park is highly recommended. It’s 10$ a night for tents with no car, no extra for showers, wifi and the little village is quiet and shaded and has a good grocery store and pub. Perfect.

The riding really is so much tougher after about 12 midday. The heat is the main reason but there is a lot of smoke in the air here from forest fires in British Columbia. I thought it hadn’t affected me, but my eyes are finding it tough – and of course also there are very limited views from up high.

Heavy smoke keeps the bright sun off – rest time on the way up the pass.
But no view…

Taking a break on the Loup Loup pass – starting to warm up

At the top at 11 am – 800 metres of climbing at 6%

The pass has only reopened a couple of weeks ago – the winter washed out the road on several places

The town of Riverside on a hot August evening

Perfect ending to the day…

Storytime:

Early Cricket Days – 1981

This will be the earliest story that features. In those halcyon days I ran my own cricket team. We played for 10 years or so on Sundays, midweek, and a summer tour. All of us friends played for local clubs, many at a good level, so we were pretty decent. Looking back, it was such a good idea to make a team for your friends to play in together, sadly no place in the modern game.

We did enter a T20 local league and it was relatively new and of very varying standard. Usually we played all our games away at many tremendous clubs, but for this league we needed a home ground and we hired and used a Boys Club just across the fence from Tranmere Rovers ground. These were not are most glamorous fixtures so occasionally we did struggle to get 11 players. On this particular occasion, a very special one, all 5 Weston boys played, my father (who bowled crafty off spin and appealed at totally unnecessary times), Dunc (a solid opener not really suited to T20, but could chip over the inner ring), hard-hitting Nick, and last, but ny no means least, 11 year old Nigel in his first ‘senior’ game.

The game was against the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, or the MPTE as they were better known. I think they had done what I had done, made a team for a few mates, and maybe got some money for kit off the boss. But, they weren’t good, in fact embarrassingly poor. These were bus conductors, train drivers and ticket collectors. Looking back now I can’t help but think of Blakie, from On The Buses. They were him with a Scouse accent. Also it looked like they’d spent their kit money on beers, as some still had their uniforms on in the field.

They let us bat first, with no toss, and we got very many. Nick hit a ball like a shell that never got higher than 10 metres above the ground and went straight to Blakie fielding at long off. It smashed him on the forehead and went sailing into Tranmere Rovers ground. If anyone needs a HIA it was him, but he staggered on, assuring all that he was fine, but confused, for a minute thinking he was checking tickets. Nick got a hundred and still to this day he counts it as one of his high scores when looking back. I think we won by more than 200 runs – despite some less than serious bowling they managed less than 20.