Having just spoken to a few strangers who recognized us, Zilla and I set off on a little emotional high. It had been so fulfilling to know that real people had been following our journey and that maybe we were helping make a difference in the lives of animals in need after all! To add to the thrill, the next several miles were totally paved and totally downhill. We could just coast along and enjoy the scenery!

Along the way, we saw a few animals that were off in the distance including a pileated woodpecker, a wild turkey, a fuzzy caterpillar, and a deer that was too quick for the camera. It would have been a perfect ride except for the constant paranoia about everything in the area being toxic and part of a superfund site where the only safe place to be was on the pavement. Normally, I let Zilla out to wander a bit and go the bathroom, but I was petrified at doing it here and having him ingest something horrible or soak it through his paws.

Like all good things, the downhill came to an end around 8 miles later at the shore of Chatcolet Lake which is realistically part of the much larger reservoir known as Lake Coeur d’Alene. This was by far the largest body of water we’d seen since riding through the Cascades and even then, those were much smaller bodies of water (Lake Easton, Keechelus Lake, and Rattlesnake Lake). As it was a beautiful day, the trail was fairly crowded but not enough to feel excessive at all which was wonderful, especially since we were used to having the trail to ourselves for entire days at a time.

The ride along the lakeshore was flat and peaceful and after about a mile, it became apparent that we were going to cross over the lake on an old railroad bridge of some sort. The bridge however had been retrofitted to be made of a series of flat platforms that had short ramps connecting them so that people crossing the bridge wouldn’t have to climb up the entire thing at one time and wouldn’t gain an insane amount of speed while going down the other side. It was really a cool design!

Zilla and I began to slowly climb up the ramps on the bridge and it became very apparent that the ramps were actually fairly steep. It took a good amount of power to work our way to the top and I was more than happy to take a photo break and catch my breath. We even got to watch a couple of small boats go under the bridge. The bridge was actually quite busy but the pictures don’t reflect it as I try my best to keep people out of my photos and just show the scenery.

After the bridge, we began working our way along the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene towards the town of Harrison where we would grab a bite to eat. When we got to town, we found ourselves in the middle of Oktoberfest and all the shops and businesses were closing down for the season so it was extremely busy with tourists, extremely loud from bands performing in a nearby tent, and the stores were out of just about everything and selling what they had left at major discounts to get rid of it by the end of the day. So we picked up a few groceries for the coming day, but treated ourselves to a wonderful BBQ lunch which Zilla and I split.

We then left Harrison and all the crowds behind and continued northeast back into the quiet of nature. Just a mile or so out of town I saw a dark object in the distance and it was about to have a major impact on our journey….