Trepidation
Sunrise on the Great American Rail Trail - Near Kittitas, Washington
With the forests behind us now, our bike touring adventure had started a new phase. We had been to the ocean, gone through the mountains, the rain forest, and even a major city, but now, we were heading into something entirely different, the vast open expanses of nothingness that make up the majority of Washington. It would be an entirely different type of beauty, more subtle but no less impressive. This type of scenery allows the mind to wander more and focus less on trying to capture every moment with a camera instead being present in the moment and even taking more time for introspection.
During one such moment lost in thought, my mind was drawn back to the present when my nose sensed something we had not been anticipating, the smell of apples. It wasn’t faint either, it was as if I had dipped my nose into a jar of applesauce. I couldn’t immediately identify the source, but then maybe 20 yards down the trail, there was an apple tree, bearing hundreds of delicious red apples, and within arm’s length of the trail. It wasn’t part of an orchard, it was just a single tree. It made me wonder how it got there. I romanticized that maybe back when the railroad ran along the trail, a passenger on the train threw their apple core out the window and somehow, one of the seeds found a way to take root and grow in the much more arid landscape near Thorp, Washington.
(click photos to enlarge and see descriptions)
Overall, the day was filled with many small moments of little consequence. We crossed the Yakima River for the last time and enjoyed the way the bridge incorporated the original railroad structure interwoven with more modern building techniques, we passed a home that had dozens of antique cars in various states of decay, strewn about the yard, and as we approached the city of Ellensburg, we started to see a few other people out on the trail. After arriving in town, we rode straight to our motel as it was only 2 blocks away from the Palouse to Cascades Trail route.
We typically try to stay at Motel 6 whenever possible as they tend to be cheap and are always dog friendly without charging an extra pet fee, unlike most other places. But sometimes, you get what you pay for…. Though we had a gigantic room with a king size bed and a kitchenette, the room was pretty dated. I was able to overlook the fact that there was still coffee in the coffee pot that had been there so long that it was growing mold on the top of putrid brown liquid, I was even able to mostly hold my tongue when a pit bull in a van saw Zilla, jumped out the window, and tried to attack him before I narrowly rescued him, but I finally had my fill of the Motel 6 Ellensburg when we tried to leave the room, only to find that we were trapped inside as the door wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t locked, it just wouldn’t move. It was around 5am and we were trying to hit the trail before it got too hot, so I called the front desk and the desk clerk came over and tried to open the door, but to no avail. The clerk then shouted through my closed door and said the maintenance guy would be there in a few hours…. Not wanting to waste the day waiting several hours for maintenance to show up, I did the only thing possible, I crawled out the window. Thankfully, the bike and trailer were already outside as they would have been too big to fit through the window. It was fairly difficult trying to get the dogs out the window, but we managed and headed out for the day, assuming all would be well when we got back.
As we rode out of Ellensburg, we passed by the rodeo grounds. The buildings themselves looked pretty cool in that they were designed to look like an old west town from the 1880’s. I would have loved to have gotten a closer look but the grounds were still locked for the day and more importantly, the security alarm was blaring so I didn’t think it would be a good idea to be snooping around. I made the right call too because just a few moments later, the police arrived to investigate. A few hundred yards away, we were back on the Great American Rail Trail and saw a very suspicious looking woman, dressed like a cowgirl, who walked off into the brush and disappeared into a tent. I wondered if she had been the one to trigger the alarm. The beauty of no longer being in law enforcement is that I didn’t need to find out and could just go along with my day and ride on by.
Besides, I had other things on my mind; we were approaching the hardest section of trail of the Palouse to Cascades Trail, the Yakima Training Center, a US Army firing range. This particular stretch is ≈20 miles long with no vehicle access or escape routes in case of an emergency, it has no water, has several miles of deeper, soft sand, a tunnel that is technically closed which requires climbing over, and the US military actively uses this area for war games which include live firing machine guns, artillery, and missiles. Not exactly a great place to be pulling your two dogs in a bicycle trailer! Though, we wouldn’t be doing that section today, we would be hitting it the following day, so my sense of trepidation was rapidly growing as we got closer and closer.
Our last landmark for the day was the Renslow Trestle; a 680 foot bridge which was originally built in 1909. The bridge had just been converted for pedestrian use a few months prior to our arrival and is a vital connection for the Palouse to Cascades/Great American/John Wayne Trails as it crosses over Interstate 90 and ties together a section of over 30 continuous miles of trail. If it were closed, we would have had to go many miles out of the way, including a steep climb and descent, so we were very happy that we had lucked out and gotten to use it!
The bridge was basically our turnaround point for the day, so we headed back to the motel. We got back some time in the early afternoon only to find that our room was still stuck shut and the maintenance guy had just gotten there, nearly 9 hours after we had reported the issue. When I saw the maintenance guy, he looked familiar to me and I quickly realized that he was the owner of the pit bull that had tried to attack Dogzilla. I was happy I hadn’t told him off because I figured the chances of him doing anything to help me with my door would have completely evaporated once he realized who I was. I talked to him for a bit and he was actually a pretty decent guy and even offered to loan me a tool to do some work on my bike which I gladly accepted.
With the door finally fixed, the dogs and I went to the local dog park in Ellensburg. While I was anxiously worrying about our upcoming ride through the warzone, Dogzilla and Captain made friends with some local dogs and even a few humorously designed statues. It helped lighten the mood for the dangers that lay ahead.
