Today was pretty hard. Not "dark night of the soul" hard, but "not sure I can keep these pedals turning" hard.
First stop leaving John Day was the grocery store. I checked ou the magazines, almost bought a motorcycle magazine, but decided "Survival" was more my speed. This selection of magazines is different from that in the Paris airport.
The haze from yesterday is gone. It was only in the 80's today so no complaints about the temperature.
We stopped in the town of Mount Vernon to use the restroom at their City Hall. The woman working there was very nice to us. The large room was their city council meeting room.
Not the repurposed theatre seats lining the room. I noticed that the city council had 5 members, and she said that the have a population of 500. I said, so 1% of the population is on the city council; are your meetings harmonious, or acrimonious? She said they all got along well. I asked about Sumpter and she confirmed that (paraphrasing) Sumpter and its residents have some issues.
At lunchtime we rolled into the tiny but charming town of Dayville. Above is City Hall and the library. Across the street was this gift shop that sold ice cream, so we headed over.
This town is super bike friendly. Even though they only have 150 residents, they have a couple of places to stay for cyclists, and a well-equipped bike repair operation housed within the Merchantile.
We had a great conversation about all the things the merchants are doing to make their town inviting to tourists. Notice the number of beers on tap to refill growlers. I give Dayville 5 stars for their efforts to make the place as inviting as possible.
After Dayville, we had a 25 mile climb with 2500 feet of elevation gain. That got to be seriously tedious in a headwind. We were both carefully rationing our efforts, knowing that we wouldn't be at the summit until our odometers read 63.5. Fortunately we had some spectacular canyons to ride through.
At one point we had to stop and wait for road construction, so we stood under the flagger's big umbrella and made friends with her. Basically if you stopped you had to find shade immediately.
No clouds in sight. Notice that the roads now have shoulders. Today was the first day in a while that we have has shoulders to ride on. Like the last couple of days, we had the roads pretty much to ourselves, which is a great luxury.
Here's Marie arriving at the summit. After climbing 2,500 feet I expected a great view but it was nothing spectacular.
See what I mean? I expected it to at least equal the Ben Lomond outside of Queenstown NZ (360 degree views looking down one mile). Nothing to see here, to speak of.
No need to use brakes on the descent, the headwind kept your speed between 20-30 mph. I took some pictures while descending.
We are staying at an historic hotel in the tiny of Mitchell (population 112). The town is bike friendly and cyclists fill the hotel and the (only) cafe.
We ate dinner with Mark and Kelly, westbound era who we met 3 days ago.
Tomorrow we do 47 miles to Prineville. It will be easy compared to today.
We are staying at an historic hotel in the tiny of Mitchell (population 112). The town is bike friendly and cyclists fill the hotel and the (only) cafe.
We ate dinner with Mark and Kelly, westbound era who we met 3 days ago.
Tomorrow we do 47 miles to Prineville. It will be easy compared to today.