Two things happen to us when we ride multiple long days in a row. First, our sleep improves and second, food tastes so good (I could boil one of our socks and we’d think it tasted like chicken.) As a result, rest days are pure magic. We buy a ridiculous amount of food and then sit around in a Airbnb gorging and sleeping. For the reasons mentioned previously, we did two rest days back to back.

Our Airbnb in Spokane was perfect. The home was rural and right outside of our window was a big field. There wasn’t very much car noise, and we could just relax. It was quite a contrast to the campsite we had the night prior to arriving in Spokane.

We did an Albertson’s delivery order and had about nine bags of groceries to carry up the stairs to our little studio. It was weird to look at the pile of food and realize all that was going to be eaten within two days. Now, at the end of our rest days, the food is gone. We had the opportunity to get a lot more unprocessed foods into our bodies. Every day we had salads, vegetables, tofu, and impossible burgers. We also shifted to waffles for breakfast as we’ve been eating oatmeal every day on the trail.

Don’t be deceived, as it wasn’t all healthy food. We also had vegan ice cream and continue to munch on our trail snacks. This is the part of our trip where I actually gain weight.

The other amazing thing that happens on a rest day is we get to wash our clothes. I know it sounds gross, but while riding we often have to wear our same bike kits two days in a row. We try to air them out through the night and that helps. There just isn’t room to pack six sets of biking clothes in our small panniers, so we bring three and use each twice and try very hard to find a place to stay that has laundry about once a week.

We had a good Sabbath day. Often at home my life is so busy on Sundays it is hard to ponder and think. We were not within distance of a place to worship, so we spent the full day together in our Airbnb, listened to our home congregation’s meetings, and had a quiet Sunday. It is good to occasionally be forced to slow down.

Monday was spent relaxing and also preparing for the next 5 days. I worked on the bike a bit more. It isn’t perfect, but I’m more confident it will last for the rest of our ride (6-7 ride days). Natalie enjoyed the opportunity to read a book. We spent some time together planning our route and talking to Page and Vance about the route once they arrive. Tuesday’s ride will not likely involve a lot of bike paths and will be on roads with cars so we spent time trying to find roads that looked like they were not heavily traveled. We also watched a documentary together that Natalie‘s father had recommended. It was titled Beyond Breaking: The Science of Our Planet. It was about the earth, and what we need to do to ensure our grandchildren get to enjoy it as much as we do. It was a good documentary.

This has been a great couple of rest days and now our bodies and minds are ready to return to the road.