Bicycling the Lewis & Clark Trail
Washougal to Carson, WA

Sunday, May 23, 2004
Distance Cycled: 34 miles
Vertically Climbed: 2,210 feet
Average Speed: 10.2 mph

We woke up this morning looked out the window and saw that it had rained hard during the night. We walked across the street to a restaurant for breakfast. While we were eating breakfast, it rained outside but the rain stopped before we began our day's ride. We rode under a cloudy sky for the 4th day in a row. As we looked east we could see where it was raining hard in the Columbia Gorge.

Since we were riding east, we hoped that we would not catch up with the rain. We had several brief periods of sunshine. Our daughter, Barbara, called us as we were riding through North Bonneville. We stopped under some large fir trees and talked to her on the phone. Suddenly it began to rain. We ended the phone call, put on our rain gear and moved forward on the road shoulder about 20 feet where the pavement was staying dry. The trees above us kept us dry while it rained very hard all around us. After 10 minutes the rain stopped and we proceeded on our way. We had only gone a short distance when it began to rain again. We stopped to take shelter two more times before we had gone a ½ mile. Gary and Ann were ahead of us and they did not have any rain. George and Jane were behind us and they encountered only a very wet road. We rode about 2 more miles and found that the road was dry.

We proceeded to the Skamania Lodge, which is located just west of Stevenson. We ate lunch at the lodge at 2:30PM. After lunch we finished our ride to Carson where the owner informed us that it had rained in Carson all day.

I borrowed some rags to clean the bicycle and while wiping the water and dirt off the rear tire, I discovered a bulge in the sidewall. I reduced the air pressure in the tire and pushed the bulge back under the wheel rim. When I increased the tire pressure, the bulge reappeared. I removed the tire from the wheel and found that the tire had ripped away from the steel bead. I used fiberglass reinforced duct tape to repair the bulge. Tomorrow we will see if this worked. Around 7:30 four of us walked about ½ a mile to a restaurant for a "small" supper. We all had such a late lunch that two of us had dessert and two ate a small dinner salad. Tomorrow will be our last day to ride on this portion of our trip.