A Beautiful Mellow Ride

Yesterday was our last rest day of the trip - Leavenworth WA.  Once again - didn't do too much.  Out for a walk to explore town.  There is a nice trail down by the Wenatchee River.  Lots of cute little shops in the downtown core.  Ate German all day - chicken & apple sausage + pretzel for lunch and Wiener schnitzel for dinner.  The town is in a beautiful mountain setting and the hostess at our hotel was lovely.

Up and at it again today.

 We were on the US 2 highway for 5 miles and then turned onto quieter roads with rolling hills.  Lots of orchards, farms and rural residential throughout the day.  Really nice riding on quiet roads for about 15 miles.  In keeping with today's title, about five miles of that was on "Easy St.".   I usually prefer to ride on my own, but happened to be close to more people today - pictures with Linda and with Ann below.  And then Ann & Linda stopped at the hollyhocks.  It seems that we get much more spread out on the hills - and most of the hills came at the end of the ride today.

Many days we don't see any semblance of civilization.  Today we cruised through a few small towns - Cashmere, Monitor, Sunnyslope and Entiat.  Almost the whole gang stopped for a bit to eat in Entiat. FYI - I shared this with Sheila; I didn't eat the whole thing myself.

We rode about 20 miles on US 97-Alt.  It was a great road - no truck traffic, wide shoulders, beside rivers and lakes (Wenatchee, Entiat) - beautiful!

 

Now, US 97-Alt would have taken us right into our destination town tonight (Chelan).  But, no, there was a hillier alternative so of course we had to take the one.  Very pretty though - SR 971 for 15 miles.  Actually, the hills weren't bad and there was a lot more flat and downhill than I had expected.  Here's the view on our final downhill toward Lake Chelan.  Back in amongst the orchards, and as we rode Lakeshore Road toward Chelan we saw lots of vineyards and wineries by the roadside.

I rode the last few miles into town with a local rider and then did a few more miles to the downtown area just to do a little exploring.  Back to our hotel beside the lake in plenty of time.  Just a really nice mellow ride amongst the backroads and quieter highways today.

Stats for the day:
105 km / 65 miles from Leavenworth WA to Chalen WA
3003 feet up
3017 feet down
Weather:  another perfect day. Bright sunshine with a few clouds. No wind of consequence. Started at 13C. Up into the mid20sC at one point and then cooled off to low 20sC. Very comfortable for riding.