Rachel gave us coffees, muffins and some info at her “Hole in the grounds” coffee shop in downtown Rosalia.
This rail trail called “Palouse to Cascade” has a very rough surface of big chunk gravel used for train tracks. Most rail trails have much finer crushed rock. Also, unbeknownst to us, we need to get a permit to ride because there are combination padlocks on a dozen gates so far. I tried to call the phone number on the sign but got a machine prompt “type in your access code” as if their answering machine remote access. We found another number but I had to leave a message and they haven’t called me back yet. It’s definitely a pain to lift our heavy bikes over the gates.
As luck would have it, our route took us through the burned area. We saw lots of firefighters and electric power workers cleaning up and making repairs. We were tired at 50 miles so we used a bathroom near the grain storage tower as campsite because there are no towns or campgrounds near here.
