Republic, WA

Finally into Washington, which decided to give us an unpleasant surprise of hills and more hills. The trip is starting to wind down time wise but certainly not terrain wise. After coming into Sandpoint, Idaho for a build day (which is a fantastic town, and we had a great 1/2 day build putting up siding), Washington threw at us its best. On our first day into Chewelah we had a relatively flat day until the last 20 miles, 10 of which were a huge uphill on the Flowery Hill Road with a maximum grade of 11% (goes up 11 feet for every hundred). The resulting downhill was great though, it took us straight into town maxing out the speed at around 45 mph. When we got into Chewelah we jumped in the cold creek behind the church and then spent an hour playing volleyball, we actually started to get kinda good. Then we walked over to the public pool that was opened up only for us since it was closed on Sunday and we played around, basketball and other fun games, and then we went to the church for a wonderful dinner and presentation where Kevin and I debuted our first draft of a movie for us.

The next day (today) we came to Republic. The first 35 miles were relatively flat and we were able to cover ground very quickly (minus Christopher's 2 flats). After his second flat Ian and I went on ahead and came to lunch where we had the best peaches I've ever eaten. From about mile 35 (5 miles before lunch) until around mile 58 was all uphill over Sherman Pass, there were a few short downhills but there were a couple stretches of up to 10 miles of constant uphill with no breaks. It was probably, no definitely the longest uphill I've ever experienced. But now I'm here in the small metropolis of Republic, WA enjoying the refreshing air conditioning of the library. Oh did I mention it was in the 90s and up to about 105 the last few days... that put a damper on things for sure.

We've got more passes to look out for, but hopefully none as bad as Sherman Pass (a cool [or hot as the case may be] 5575 feet tall).