Yesterday, when I said, "There was nothing terribly remarkable about today's ride," I didn't mean it in a negative way. A good portion of the day was nice riding on lightly-travelled roads. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and I enjoyed it. Lots of tall ponderosa pines, mountains, and nice rivers. But the landscape pictures from my smartphone don't do it justice. Today was similar.

Actually, I was thinking about the current landscape while riding my bike. From my start in Anacortes through my present location, the scenery has featured a lot of BIG trees. On the western side of the Cascades, there were fir, spruce, cedar, and lots of other species of big trees. East of the Cascades, it's been more ponderosa pine and aspen with spruce and fir as well. I came to the realization though that I'm about to run out of big trees in just a few more days. After I pass through Glacier National Park in a couple days, I think the trees will start to thin out pretty quickly and I'll be on the northern Great Plains where grasslands will dominate. And I will miss the trees. I think I'll get back into trees in Minnesota.

One more topic before I get to my daily pictures. I thought some of you might be interested in the dashboard I've rigged up on my bike. As I mentioned in one of my earliest posts on this blog, I'm using old-school paper maps from Adventure Cycling Association. Being able to follow the turn-by-turn instructions requires that the maps be front and center. So here's what my navigation dashboard looks like:

I record the entire day's ride on Strava, but the cyclocomputer comes in handy for measuring distances between turns or certain waypoints. I also have a Bose Soundlink Micro BlueTooth speaker that sits just underneath the map; I haven't used it much yet, but I suspect it might get a little more use on the aforementioned northern Great Plains.

I rode along Lake Koocanusa for dozens of miles today. Near the north end, not far from the Canadian border, was the Koocanusa Bridge that connects the seasonal road on the west side of the lake with the year-round road on the east side of the lake. The bridge was built before the dam was completed and the valley was flooded.

This next group of photos is all from the same ranch between Rexford and Eureka. You can tell that the ranch owners have a good sense of humor.

The rider sihouettes in the field are just plywood cutouts.

 

 

Adorning the fence along the bike path and road were numerous old cowboy boots and old saddles. They were slowly decaying due to rain, snow, and sun, so it was interesting to see the construction details and how they were falling apart.

After the whimsical ranch, there was a fantastic view directly up the valley to the north. I'd be willing to bet that those mountains shrouded in clouds were in Canada as I was just a few miles from the border.

Finally, there have been a lot of whitetail deer around the past few days. This fawn (and its unpictured mama) were grazing just off the side of the road this afternoon.