Day 65, Tuesday, June 25
Dana, the host at the hostel, had coffee for us in the morning. We needed it: we had yet another big day ahead of us.
The morning was cold but promised to warm quickly as the sun rose over the mountains. Fortunately, most of the climbing came early. After a nice little descent out of Mitchell we began the long climb to Ochoco Pass.
Maybe the fatigue from the last few days of climbing in Oregon were getting to me. This one seemed longer and steeper than the rest. It was 12 miles averaging 4% gradient, but the last half was a good but steeper than the first. Fortunately our friend Ty, who we meet in Dubois, Wyoming, had given us some good advice: "Keep on pedalling." We did, and after what seemed like hours we reached the top of the pass.
Our tentative plan was to get to Prineville and see how we felt. Fortunately, the road was all downhill. We descended quickly, and as we did so we got our first views of the Cascade volcanoes in the distance, including Mt. Jefferson, Oregon's second highest peak.
Without a lot of breakfast and nothing but Clif Bars fueling us for 47 miles, we stopped at the first place we saw in Prineville, yet another diner.
We had been working hard in Oregon with all the climbing. We could have called it a day in Prineville, especially since the afternoon in the Oregon high desert was going to be hot. But we had a short ride the day before (the shortest of the tour) so we decided to press on. The only real option was Madras, about 30 miles north.
We stocked up on liquids since there is nothing between Prineville and Madras in the way of amenities, but there is a lot of traffic. Everyone drives fast, and there is very little shoulder. The road is flat, for the most part, but it was a hot, noisy, nerve-wracking 30 miles.
When we finally got to Madras we stopped at the first place we could find a cold drink, a Dollar General. We sat on the sidewalk in the shade of the building enjoying, in my case, a Diet Coke, a Snickers Ice Cream Bar, and a bag of Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion chips. One thing I will miss about this tour is eating anything I damn well please.
From Dollar General it was half a mile to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. There is an RV Park there. We found the host who told us where to pitch our tents, in a nice grassy field next to the RVs. However, I asked her if we could just sleep under one of the nearby pavilions so we would not have to pitch our tents. Once we told her we would be gone before 6:30 AM she agreed, and she did not even charge us. Maybe we really are just one step from becoming hobos.
There was one slight hiccup. At first we locked our bikes to a small animal pen at the end of the pavilion. As we were getting ready to walk to dinner a man came up and asked politely if we could move our bikes. "We have some pigs coming in." I thought he meant they would be leaving some pigs there, which would have been amusing. However, the fair is in a couple of weeks and some kids were going to be practicing their showmanship that evening. When we returned from dinner at the inevitable brew pub, they were all gone.
It was a really good day, difficult, but satisfying. As one of John's friends told him, enigmatically, "Nothing hard is easy." The day before we put in an extremely short ride. There were good reasons for it, but it still gnaws at us when we finish the ride with so much daylight left. This day it felt good to put in the extra effort to get that much closer to the end.
Comments
Post a Comment