Total mileage: 72
I'm not sure I made a big enough deal earlier over the fact that THIS IS THE LAST AND FINAL STATE OF THE TRIP! Really it's pretty incredible. 8 weeks in and only a few days from the coast! It's hard to contemplate the prospect of not bike touring sometime soon.
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| Oregon knows that cyclists exist! |
We got a late start out of Baker City because we were leaving from a comfy house, because we had to go grocery shopping, and because I discovered a cracked link in my chain. That and my back wheel is slightly out of true! We couldn't fix the true this morning, but we replaced the broken link.
Our ride took us up and over three passes, each of approximately 1000 vertical feet. The climbing was actually really fun, since none of the passes were too long or too steep. And they were all in the trees, which was a lovely change from the ride to Baker City. About 15 miles out of town, we had someone pull over and offer us cold water, which always makes us happy!
We were especially appreciative because getting water was a bit of a challenge on this ride. We even ran into a bit of trouble later on when the store we were counting on for water was closed. The owners had left a sign on the door for those looking for drinking water, directing us to a pipe next to the road that apparently spurted fresh spring water. We weren't excited about retracing our steps a mile to get there, but it seemed to be the only option. Sure enough, we found a pipe jutting out of the hillside on the side of the road gurgled a steady stream of water. It was a bit bizarre, but we decided to trust the sign's assurance that the water was safe for drinking.
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| Top of Dixie Pass (named by Southern sympathizers during the Civil War) |
After crossing the third and final pass, we whooshed quickly down to Prairie City. The view along the descent was marvelous (if a bit hazy from smoke) and we stopped to take a couple of photos. Little did we know that the world's largest fungus was only a few miles from where we rode! Even better, the fungus is actually the world's largest living thing (check it out at
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/). We didn't find out about the humongous fungus until the next day; otherwise, we might have gone looking for it.
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| Beautiful viewpoint + bizarre oversized wagon monument (I didn't actually take a panorama photo, but I found one on my phone later. Sometimes technology scares me.) |
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| =) |
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| Riding into Prairie City |
The mountains in the photos are very hazy due to an immense wildfire raging near Dayville, not too far away. Actually, our hosts (Jimi and Karen) had sent us a message letting us know that they wouldn't be home until late that evening because they were aiding the firefighting effort. We arrived at their house around 6pm to find a note welcoming us inside. Their home was beautiful, with a spectacular view of the mountains. We took our time showering and settling in to the "Bob Marley suite," an excellently decorated room that used to be their son's.
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| The mural in our room |
Even though we couldn't meet them yet, our hosts sent us updates about the fire and let us know what they were up to. Jimi sent us an excellent photo of himself tending to a firefighting plane!
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| The wildfire (photo taken by Jimi's pilot friend) |
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| Jimi keeping the planes going! |
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| At our host's lovely home |
Since our hosts had to be away until late and no restaurants in town were open, we ended up scavenging ourselves dinner from their fridge. They had lots of wonderful food, so it worked out fine! We finally got to meet our hosts (and their son and family!) at around 9:30pm. Even though it was late, Jimi took a look at my back wheel and helped get it back in true. We were impressed by the hospitality they showed us without even being there. We're glad they were out stopping fires, but we wish we had gotten to spend more time getting to know them!
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| Prairie City at sunset |
- Alix
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