Day 52 Grandview. WA -> Yakima, WA

Sunday 11 Sept 2011 3'rd day of the 8'th week.  Day 49 on the Road

Lucky for us today will be another very short mileage day do to availability of motel rooms tomorrow. First we all got to sleep a bit late because the B&B we are staying at is not going to feed us until 8AM.  I guess most people that stay at a B&B are not in any rush to get going in the morning. We basically had an entire house again not just one room to sleep in. We had a full working kitchen two bedrooms and even a hot tub we did not use on the deck. The beds were comfy and the place was spotlessly clean.


For the past couple nights we have been looking at return flight information. Like everything else the prices have increased quite a bit since we first looked at them over a year ago during the planning stages of this journey. We also need a flight that will get us home at a reasonable hour so we can get a volunteer to pick us up at the airport. Having to go to the airport is bad enough, doing it at midnight is terrible.  That is when Ken’s uncle had to pick us up last time. We want to avoid that this time.


As you can see from today’s profile we were on a steady uphill trend for almost 30 miles. The climb was not difficult but it lasted for a few hours. Tomorrow will be the big climb over Whites Pass and the last range of mountains separating us from the coast. Then we should have a great downhill to the long Interurban Rails to Trails bicycle patch that will take us into Seattle.

Just after we left the B&B we started going past miles of tall aromatic vines hanging from strings tied to cables high above.  

The air was filled with a perfume type sent. The tall green vines are one of the main ingredients in beer, hops. We pulled into one of the farms for a quick look when one of the family owners, Stacy Puterbaugh came up to us. 


Ken asked a few questions and the next thing we knew Stacy was taking us on a personal guided tour of the  family operation.

It was an amazing site of farmer’s ingenuity in action. Custom made machinery, tunnels and conveyor belts stripped the precocious hops off the vine and sent them to a drying area.

The naked vines entered a shredder before they were dumped into a pile outside to spread on the fields for fertilizer.

Because of the lack of available motels we are only traveled 51 miles today.  It was great actually, to be honest.  Riding only 50 to 60 miles a day would give you the time to enjoy a few minutes looking at a working farm or some other point of interest. It was a pleasant break in our normally rushed days.
Along our route today we passed other crops of apples, peaches, pears and grapes. They were all soon to be harvested. Ken snagged a few pears and peaches all were good but just not quite ready yet but still tasty though.

We passed a sign that looked interesting.  Possibly a new business one of our followers or team members may be interested in starting on the east coast.  Pooper Patrol.  Oh yea, own your own business and become rich and famous. Any takers??


Tomorrow will not be as easy as today was on us.  We will have to cover twice the mileage and four times the climbing to go over a mountain range separating us from the west coast .Early to bed and an early wake up will be the order of business. Whites Pass Washington ………….Team Eliminator is heading your way.


51 Easy Miles
1648 Feet of Climbing 
Temperature 65 - 100 degrees