Friday, October 16, 2009

Day Two Hundred-three, 091009 - Topenish, WA

Day Two Hundred Twenty-three, Date Friday, October 9, 2009
Time in Saddle: 7:39
Distance for the Day: 77.18 miles From Hermiston To Topenish, WA
Accumulated Trip Distance: 11,233 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 537’/681’, Highest: 1509’ Accumulated: 1906’
Speeds: Avg: 10.0 mph, Max: 39.9 mph
Weather: 20° and clear, becoming overcast and cool to cold
Expenditures: $16

I woke up at 6am, and got up at 6:15am. It was very cold, again, and my tent fly was stiff with frozen condensation on it – I tried to ‘dust’ it off, but wasn’t very successful. There was a waxing gibbous moon high up in the southwest getting close to full, and bright Venus, but while I was breaking camp, a cloud cover came in. I left before sunrise at 7am, and quickly found a mini mart just a bit up the road to have a breakfast of banana nut muffin, blueberry Danish, hot cocoa, and I also picked up a soda for the road ($7). After eating at the table they had, there, I left at 8:11am to continue up Hwy 395 towards the Columbia River and Washington State, which I made at 9:08am. I made it to the town of Prosser at 1:50pm, and almost immediately stumbled upon their library, so I went in to handle email, check weather, charge the notebook, and afterwards had the 2nd half of my Subway sandwich for lunch. I left at 3:45pm to continue up towards Mabton and Yakima. I stopped at a mini mart for food and drink supplies at 4:45pm ($9), and rode until sunset, making the town of Topenish. I found a church just off the highway, and pulled in to ask if they’d mind my setting up my tent overnight. They called the church minister, and he gave his okay, so I parked in a gravel lot as far from the roadway as I could, behind a small utility shed (N46 22.386’ W120 19.448’). The traffic noise was fairly loud, but handleable with earplugs. I munched, drank, and read my book for about an hour, and then went to sleep around 8:30pm. When going to sleep so early in the evening, I seem to have a tendency to wake up around 11pm or 12am and get thirsty. I usually save some of my soda for such instances, but this time I didn’t, so had to crawl outside and grab a Gatorade bottle for a couple of swallows. Back to sleep – zzzzzzzz!

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