Remember how I said there was no water at the 4M park? Well, just two miles down the gravel road I came to a faucet that had a sign saying "Potable Water"! They need to update their sign at the entrance! I filled all my bottles.
The road through 4M park was quite winding. And, I was not at the top. I went up, then down, then up again. I thought I would never get out of there! Periodically, the views were pretty awesome.
At this point, I thought I was going all the way down for sure...nope.
Finally, just past milepost 13 (mile 7 for me), I came to King Valley Rd. from there it really was downhill the rest of the way. It was about 5 miles of great downhill. I came back to the pavement on De Smet Rd., which took me back to Hwy 95. I stopped in Tensed for a snack. From there it was still 13 miles to Plummer.
I had to go over a ridge, but I had a great tailwind, so it wasn't bad at all. When I arrived in Plummer, I stopped at a convenience store for some Gatorade. I asked the gal about the Trail of the Couer d'Alenes. She said it was just out of town and to the left. Left??? That's not where it was when I did the Tour d' Lac. I went the way I remembered, but it wasn't looking familiar. I asked another guy. I was told again that it was just out of town and to the left. Okay, maybe I wasn't remembering correctly. I went "just out of town and to the left". There was the trailhead.
I am absolutely positive this was not here in 2009. I think what they did is extend the trail to this area so they could build a nice trailhead. Anyway, I got on the trail. 
This part was not here in 2009. After the first bit, the trail began its 5 mile 3% downgrade. I coasted the entire way to the lake.
Going along Lake Couer d'Alene.
In my memory, I remembered there being the campground along the way. Well, I got almost to the bridge, and still didn't see a "campground". I stopped at the boat ramp and asked this gal where Heyburn State Park was. She said I was in it. Then she said the camping was "just up there". Great! I started to ride up the road, but all I saw were private cabins. I remembered passing the Day Use area when I was on the trail, so I went back there. Yep, that was just the Day Use area. I came out to the road because I figured there would be a sign. There wasn't, but when I continued on the road, I finally came to a sign for Chetcolet Campground. Ahhh...I've seen this before in Idaho State Parks. The whole park is Heyburn State Park, but there are differently named areas. Turns out there are 3 campgrounds here. Two are toward the south end of the lake. So, I finally made it to the campground. I found a spot where I could actually park MC, that also had a flat spot for my tent. This is the tent campground, but not all sites had good tent spots.
I didn't see any showers. I thought I'd go for a swim. I asked the people next to me if the trail went down to a swimming area. They said it did. I told them I hadn't had a shower for 3 days. They said they needed to go to the other campground to get ice, and there were showers there. They offered to give me a ride over there (it was quite a ways away). Woo hoo! A shower for Colleen!!! It was also where the park HQ was, so I was able to pay for my site too.
Afterward, we stopped at Plummer Marsh. We didn't see many birds. I think it was too windy.
The Marsh.
We came back and I set up the rest of my stuff. I went over to talk to Kathy, John, and Allie some more. We ended up playing cards. We played a couple of versions of Golf that I had never played. I'll try to remember them for the cabin.
I cooked my dinner and took it over to their table. It was nice to dine with some other people for a change.
So, that was my day. Pretty great, I think! Oh, and one more thing. Here's the toilet. Yeah you think Vault toilet, right?
Rustic, right?
Surprise! It's a flushie!!!
Total miles today: 43.3
Average speed: 9.24
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