Friday, August 14, 2009
Day 60: John Day, OR to Mitchell, OR
After getting in very late the previous night, we weren't really in good shape to get moving this morning. In fact, we weren't in great shape to move at all. First mission: breakfast. Across the street was a little diner. We downed a ridiculous amount of food, then were really slow packing up our stuff. We didn't get out of there until 11.
A couple miles out of John Day, Jillian started feeling very sick. We stopped at Clyde Holliday State Park to rest a while. We chatted for a while with some motorcyclists who were touring about the Northwest. I only felt a little envious of their motors. We also spotted a sign warning us about Cougars in the area. So I thought maybe I should fill Jillian in on the green eyes from the night before.
She wasn't terribly happy.
After the park, we rode on to the little town of Mt Vernon, and stopped at a gas station for some snacks. We stayed a lot longer than we should have, but again, we just weren't moving very quickly.
It was going to be almost twenty miles to the next town, and largely downhill. But then, we weren't feeling well. And we hurt. They became twenty very, very painful miles.
In Dayville, we came to a little park and stopped to use the bathroom and chatted with Steve, another touring cyclist. He said there was no way we were going to make Mitchell tonight. We explained that we didn't have a choice - we already had reservations at the only - and very small - hotel in Mitchell. Plus we needed to keep moving - we were rapidly running out of time before we had to meet Jillian's parents. In fact, we were planning to meet them at Sisters in two days.
In Dayville we glanced at the clock and realized that if we pushed really hard we might be able to make it to the John Day fossil beds to see the fossils. We started pushing hard.
As we got close, we passed through an awesome gorge.
We spotted a sign just inside the gorge that said we had 2 miles to go - and only 10 minutes until it was 4pm and the fossil center closed. Jillian broke down, but kept pushing. We both rode maybe harder than we ever had. It was such a simple thing - just a fossil center. But it was a huge mental goal for us.
We arrived right at 4 - to find a sign saying they were open until 5:30. Infuriating. We took time to explore the fossil beds and sit on a bench a while.
I was a little sad there were no dinosaurs here.
We sat around outside for a while, chatting with some fellow tourists who were amused by our bicycle. Finally it was time to get back on the road.
Mitchell was about 30 miles away. It wasn't much later than 5. We had a solid 4 hours to cover 30 miles. No problem, seeing as we'd just covered 2 miles in 10 minutes.
We knew there was another pass, we just didn't realize that this pass was almost 30 miles long. Long passes are worse than short ones, regardless of the height. At least at the start there were things to look at.
A couple of miles on, we met those same tourists from earlier. They'd driven all the way back to Dayville to buy us some dinner and something to drink. I love people that love cyclists.
We climbed, and climbed, and climbed, stopping in vain where we thought we might find a cell signal and trying to call the hotel to let them know we were going to be in a little late. We were finally able to get a text message through to Jillian's mother - we thought.
We saw a funny tree. We know nothing at all about it, but most cyclists seem to take pictures with it.
Just down the road from the shoe tree we spotted a cow on the side of the road. Cows normally seem kind of dumb and docile. This one seemed two steps from charging us.
Around mile 57, the pass started to flatten out and we were able to pick up the speed a little. Of course, it was pitch black and we were once again riding by headlamp. But by now one of our lights was dead. We operate on a system of three lights. I wear a focused headlamp
Somewhere on the long, flat top of the pass the end of the boom headlamp decided to die. We debated accepting a ride, if someone was to offer one, without coming to any real conclusions. Then the temperature started to drop, and we got miserable. Some distance off into a field, I spotted another set of green eyes. Nowhere near as close as the last ones, but still a little nerve racking. No idea if this one was a cougar.
Finally, after almost ten miles of an extra slow, not too steep climb, we crested the top. The downhill was fast. Really, really fast. We were stuck. We could either go five or six miles an hour and not be cold, or we could go forty and get down the hill in an instant. We wound up having to compromise a little. We went as fast as we felt safe - which was still freezing.
We spotted the sign for the hotel first, and it was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen. It felt like it was three in the morning, even though it was only a little after ten. Although we were exhausted, we took some time to chat without the people outside and lock the bike up to the fence outside. Inside we found a note from the owner - Jillian's mother had called, our key was attached to the note, and we could take care of payment in the morning.
The Oregon Hotel was an older building, and the decor was lots of fun. We'd paid a little extra to get a private room. Inside we found a problem - the room only had a bathtub, no shower. As it was now quarter of eleven, we weren't really in the mood to draw two baths. But then, we didn't really have any clean clothing for tomorrow anyway, and we certainly weren't going to find any laundry here. So much for getting clean tonight.
Although the note in the lobby had promised us muffins in the morning, there was nothing to be had for dinner. We choked down the remainder of the granola bars from the friendly tourists we'd met at the fossil beds. They were extra tasty, since they weren't our normal ones, even if they were a little high in fiber.
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| posted at: 04:04 |
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