A longer day today, but still relatively easy due to tailwinds. Started the day with head and crosswinds, so worked moderately hard in pacelines of 4-10 riders.

Rode up a broad flat bottomed valley with marshes, lakes and a wide river = still the Clark Fork all the way. And, compared to what I'm used to, very flat - only gained about 1000 feet net in 136 miles.

Several section along I-90, but with construction we often had one entire side to ourselves! The 3rd picture.

Still Ponderosa forest, but now with more douglas fir mixed in. And some hills that are all grass (not reforested after logging or fires???). The "mountains" are hills, not very high and pretty rounded, and the river is cut deep into valley gravel and boulder fill - a remnant, I assume of the continental glaciers up here 10-12 thousand years ago. At several times, I hear that it was all under a deep lake created by ice dams from lobes of the glaciers.

After lunch, we turned more easterly and/or the wind shifted and became quite strong so on the flats and gentle uphills we could cruise along at 22-23-24 MPH without working too hard.

Seems like about half the folks here are repeats with PACtour, and they all know each other and talk about past tours, and others not here. Ate dinner with a guy who did 4 man team RAAM (Race Across America) this year, along with a friend who had been part of the crew - interesting to hear how the dynamics of race & crew goes (including a crew mutiny with people pulling out at midnight) & differences of opinion how long each person in the team should ride, etc.

218 km(133 miles) at 28.9 km/hr (17.6 MPH), av heart rate of 105 for 7.5 hours in the saddle. Worked a little harder today.