June 21
Tursday,
June 21 John Day, Oregon 116 miles
The
roads were great and good amount of room on the berms. I bet those heavy loaded huge trucks loaded
with logs are also glad to reach the top.
They grind away going up, just like the bikes. Biking in the Ochoco (O-CHO-KO) valley, there were interesting
geological sites. The centuries old
Painted Hills were just a ways off the road we were following but with the
temperature rising and many miles to go I don’t think anyone stopped. A huge volcanic rock was near the road. It’s
called Mitchell Rock. Just past that,
many saw an antelope grazing near the road.
But the bikes spooked him away.
I rolled into a small town -
another one so small that if you blinked you might miss it – this was
Mitchell, OR.
We bikers were
stopping at the Bridge Creek Café. We
cleaned her out of those pieces of made-from-scratch homemade, from fresh
picked blueberries, pie. It was
delicious!! All these tiny out in the
middle of nowhere cafes have some mighty file cooks! That pie, while it didn’t cool me off, gave me the boost I needed
to start the next steep 6.5 mile climb to Keys Summit. I made it up to the
4,369 foot summit. For me that was a
hot climb. A few opted out and waited
for the SAG van and hitched a ride up to the summit of the mountain. I’m staying in the EFI Club ( Every Frick’n
Inch). At mile 84 another pit stop at a
café in Dayville. I’m talking SMALL
town. I don’t think anybody owns a car
out in this territory. It has to be a
pickup truck with your dog riding in the bed of the truck. This is cowboy country. I was in luck, more fresh-made-right-there
pie. Cherry pie and I took it all the
way and asked her to put a scoop of ICE COLD ice cream on top. Those
poor gals at that café. All they got
done was filling our water bottles. They said next time we ride through let
them know in advance as they could bring in more help. It was so hot by now, I took off the shirt
is was wearing and dipped it into a garden fountain in the yard. I soaked with water, a hankie to put on my
head under my helmet. Ahhhh, was that
nice for about a half hour. No, probably 10 minutes, everything dried out
immediately.
There was more
beautiful and interesting geological things to see. Cycled through the John Day Fossil Beds. The road was narrow and winding, the rock
rose almost straight up from both side edges of the road. The cliffs went way up, could hardly put my
head back far enough to look up to the top.
It was about 2 miles through this area.
Had to be careful on this narrow winding road, no place to get off on to
the sides of the road, there wasn’t any sides!
As I got past this area, I looked back and could see the millions of
years ago formation of the Basaltic Gorge. Time was moving on, I was really
dragging. Only 10 more miles to go but
I had to rest. When I got to Mt.
Vernon, I pulled in at the Texaco station.
The employees and a few “locals” were sitting outdoors in the shade on
the well-used bench. While I drank a
power sports drink, they were fun to visit with. They too had the usual questions we get asked everywhere. Where you biking from? Where you headed? How long will it take you?
One teen boy, who told me he was a 10th grader, told me a
little about Mt. Vernon. He said the
population was maybe 2,000. It is named
Mt. Vernon after it’s famous horse. Seems
this horse was the fastest horse around and they called him Mount Vernon. He pointed to where I could go see the
horse’s grave, if I wanted to. But it
was getting late and I had a hot 10 miles to go.
I pulled into John Day and the
destination for the night – at 6:40 PM.
Just in time for a fast shower and go to the dinner being served next
door at the Stagecoach Steakhouse at 7PM.
Unbelievably slow. These places
have never had 70 bikes descend on them.
We all drink so much water that they could bring in a water pitcher
person and it would keep him hopping for an hour. Sometimes we just get up and fill a pitcher ourselves and bring
it over to the table. I had the Halibut
baked fish. My protein and a big baked potato for my carbo loading for
tomorrow’s hot ride.
Route Rap followed, where we got the cue
sheet/map for tomorrow’s ride. Then it
was lights out by 8:30PM. The only TV
we watch is the weather channel.
Gunnel’s site:
www.gearspeak.com/gunnel/
Phil’s site: http://pmarquez.homestead.com
Jamie & Shawn’s site: http://www.geocities.com/jparady
Jim’s site:
www.padrerider.com