Fresh off our marathon moose encounter from the night before, Zilla and I got an early start the next morning. We were out on the trail well before anyone else so I thought we might get lucky and see some wildlife before things got scared off the path for the day and we definitely got lucky! Besides the usual birds, we were treated to a very slow-moving snail, a couple different snakes, and a centipede hunting a millipede. Sometimes it’s hard to watch a predator getting its prey and I have to remind myself to just let nature take its course, even though I’d like to intervene. Later in the day, we were treated to a praying mantis as well!

All in all, it was a pretty low-key day. We saw lots of other people out riding their bikes along the trail and even stopped to talk with a few of them before continuing on our way. The weather was absolutely perfect and the trail itself was pancake flat, continuously paved smooth tarmac and we were surrounded intermittently by forest, rivers, lakes, and swamps, not to mention mountains and the occasional farm field. It was one of the most peaceful and serene days of riding we’d ever had.

After knocking out our planned distance for the day, we took some time to relax and go grab something to eat from a gas station for lunch. I treated Zilla to a meat stick and I had a sandwich, we then split some vanilla ice cream as well. Then we went and took a short walk while deciding what to do with the rest of the day. Ultimately, I was still feeling pretty strong and there were still a couple more hours of light left so we decided to push on and try to pick up a few more miles before it got dark.

Because of the lateness of the day, the trail was basically empty at this point so I let Zilla out of the trailer so that he could walk alongside it and stretch his legs for a bit. The trail followed along the Coeur d’Alene River for several miles, slowly making its way towards the small town of Cataldo. We weren’t planning on going all the way today which was good because during one of our stops, I happened to glance at my tire and I noticed that my tire had split apart and the tube was dangerously protruding and could fail at any moment if I didn’t do something to fix the tire….