Day 22 of #ridingeverydayinNovember

Today was the 22nd day of the #ridingeverydayinNovember cycling challenge.  

This afternoon I am in Ellensburg in advance of tomorrow's trail advocacy meeting.

I took advantage of my early arrival by going for a bike ride on the John Wayne Trail.

My friend Julie and I rode northwesterly on the trail (back toward the Cascade summit). In this stretch the trail is packed gravel and relatively flat.   It was cold, in the mid 30's in the mid afternoon, after a low of 19 this morning, but the sun was shining.

We started on the north edge of Ellensburg, but were soon in an agricultural area.  Being in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mtns, this is an arid area, getting 9" of rainfall annually.

There was a lot of pasture and rangeland.

This trail runs on the former Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul, and Pacific Railroad right of way.  After a few miles we noted that we were 2063 miles from Chicago.  We would still ride a few more miles.

We came across several other trail users, most on foot, one on horseback.  They all had heard of the meeting tomorrow, but thanked us for the reminder, and were supporters of the trail.

We arrived at a bridge that crossed the Yakima River. Like much of northern Oregon and eastern Washington, the Missoula Floods radically altered the Yakima River. Today it was relatively peaceful.

With sundown rapidly approaching we turned around and pedaled back toward Ellensburg.

As the sun got lower near the horizon, we noted a marked drop in temperature.  There was ice in the shadows and bridges all afternoon and it didn't take much temperature drop to get cold creeping into the extremities.  We were happy to be finishing up right at sunset.

It was a good ride!


.........Road Bike.....Rollers.....MTB.....Lifecycle..Total
Today ......11...............0...............0.............0..............11
Jan.........765..............0...............0.............0............765
Feb........248..............0...............0.............0............248
March....183..............0...............0.............0.............183
April......228...............0..............0..............0.............228
May.......200...............0..............0..............0.............200
June........199..............0..............26............0.............225
July.........246.............0...............0..............0.............246
Aug.........502.............0...............0..............0.............502
Sept.........974.............0,,,,,,,,,,,,,,44.............0............1018
Oct.......... 962.............0..............45.............0............1007
Nov..........401..............0................3.............0.............404
_________________________________________
total.......4899.............0.............118............0...........5017