Lotta Watta - Riding the Centennial Trail this Weekend

My original plan today was to go out to the Valley via the Palouse. I like taking Sands road over the hill. I went about 4 blocks in the direction of the Palouse and changed my mind. The wind was blowing too hard. I've been caught on epic wind rides on the Palouse before and I'm not into it.
I figured I would check out the the flooding on the Centennial Trail. Consider this a public service. If you're thinking of riding the Centennial Trail this holiday weekend, be sure to ride in shoes you can submerge.

You can read more on the flooding in Peaceful Valley at the Out There blog.

The Edge Water Village Apartments on Upriver Drive. Can't get much edgier than that.
There were 2 sections of Upriver that were too deep to go through. One in front of the retirement place, and another about 1/4 mile down the road. Both are easy to avoid. This section, in front of the "Edge Water" ended up being deeper than I liked; my bottom bracket got submerged, but not my hubs... just barely though.

There were 3 sections of the trail east of Argonne that were too deep to ride through. Each was passable though.

This one required shouldering the bike and rolling up the knicks past the knees. I had to slog through the water on the left side of the photo, along the fence line. It's deeper than it looks from the this photo. It went up to my knees at the shallowest point.

You can see the trail going up the hill to the right to get by this one. It's easy enough to ride. There's a short and steep little descent in soft dirt on the other side.

Since I had planned on going to the Valley yesterday afternoon, I had called my mother-in-law, who lives on Pines, to see if she'd be around for lunch.

Indeed.

When I showed up, I could smell her kitchen 100 yards away.

Maria had just finished making a big pile of bread. She also made polpetta sugo (meatballs with sauce). I tried to have just 2 meatballs, but I ended up having 4. I also had a huge still-warm roll.

When it comes to good food, I'm so lucky. In addition to Maria, who is my Valley connection, my mother owns a Spokane cooking class company. She's on the south hill, so if I'm strategic in my timing and routing, I can usually score some great lunch fixings as she is preparing for the night's gig. She also has amazing bread. I created the natural starter that she still uses for her bread before Maddie was born, over 5 years ago. I named it Owen. I'm such a junkie for good bread.