Oregon = Awesome Cycling!

I've always thought the best place on the planet to bicycle tour is Oregon, and that notion has been re-confirmed.  My 1984 Tour from Tacoma to San Diego was so incredible, that at the end of the tour I didn't want to stop.  So the next year I quit working and went traveling for two more years.

The gold mining dredge at Sumpter, OR.

I traveled down the Oregon Coast that year, and rode across Oregon on US 26 the following year.  Both routes have seen some significant population increases in places, so parts of my routes from those years are no longer places that I would want to ride again.  

For a couple of days smoke once again obscured our view...

But our route for the past few days has been awesome.  It isn't as scenic as the routes that I rode in the mid-80s, but two thirds of our route did not allow commercial traffic without a permit, so we might see a half dozen cars go by in an hour.  And since it is miles from everywhere, camping is generally free.  It is an amazing feeling to ride for days without thinking about someone who intentionally drove by too close, or any of a dozen other near daily occurrences that detract from our experiences.

And to top it off, we met a couple near Heppner, OR who had a home built teardrop that had a ten speed bicycle painted on the back!  They were traveling with a second couple who were tent camping.  The two men would bicycle from campsite to campsite, while the women would hang out together, breaking camp and setting things up on the other end.  They have been doing this yearly since 2014 (if I got the story right, they had been traveling for the month of August this year).

The guys hit the road earlier than we do, so we didn't attempt to ride with them.  We had planned on more mileage than normal, in order to set up spending a weekend near Maupin, OR, so Alea and I opted to split our day by riding in 15 mile increments.  I had the first shift.

I normally take my time on long days, but with two bicycles out on the road in front of me, it was tempting to see if we could catch up to them.  I wasn't hopeful, as I suspected they might have an hour's head start on us, but I figured by the end of the day we would overtake them.  I rode at about 80% of race pace for about 14 miles, then Alea told me they were just ahead.  I kicked it up and gobbled them both up within a mile.

Around that same time, a Trek Travel van passed by, which I presumed was followed by a supported tour group.  It wasn't long before the lead group showed up, and then there were stragglers for several miles behind and finally a sag wagon bringing up the rear.  Without a doubt, it was the most touring cyclists that we had seen on any one day in over two years.

On the road from Condon to Fossil, waiting for Alea to catch up.

We are camped tonight in Fossil, OR at the county fairgrounds ($25, full hook-ups, showers), which is the only campground until we arrive in Maupin tomorrow, where are hoping to stay at one of several free BLM campgrounds for the weekend.

The Best Part of the Eclipse

We walked up a pine-forested hill to a spot where we could be assured of a clear view of the sun during the eclipse.  Watching the actual eclipse was fascinating, but probably no more fascinating than a good tortoise race.  What we found really fascinating was this pattern of light on the forest floor, created by the crescent-shaped sliver of the sun.
 

A path of glowing crescents!

Musical Chairs and the Eclipse

On Friday, we reconnected with our route from this past May, and from there we loaded up our bikes and drove to Catherine Creek State Park, near Union, OR.  It is a no-reservation campground, but unknown to us, that policy had been changed for this weekend, due to the forecast influx of people watching the big eclipse.  We knew we were a little to close to the path of totality, and that camping could be an issue, but we weren't quite expecting that pretty much anything that could be reserved within 100 miles of here had been snapped up early in the spring.

Joseph, OR with Wallowa Mountains in the background.

But fortunately, the day use area at Catherine Creek was opened for camping for this weekend only.  We ended up renting two parking stalls for $10 per stall.  And right now (on Saturday), we have the entire day use area to ourselves, so we feel like we did OK.

Catherine Creek Day Use Area - our own private campground!

The eclipse is like playing musical chairs - you want to have a place to sit when the music stops, which is why we will remain here through Monday night.  On Tuesday we will get up early and drive to near Sumpter, OR to a point where we rode earlier in the year.  From there we will head into north central Oregon.

Backseat driver...

Lots of Smoke

We rode into Missoula, MT about a week and a half ago, only to find that some mail that we had been expecting had not yet arrived.  We opted to wait for it by driving south to Salmon, ID to spend a few nights, and doing a little bit of riding there and back.  We had anticipated riding all the way back to Missoula, but the smoke from the forest fires was terrible - far worse than any smoggy day in LA in the 1970s.

One of the better smoke days - there should be three chains of mountains visible in the distance.

So we drove back to pick up our mail and were once again on our way.  We were passing through an area of spectacular scenery, but much of that was left to our imaginations, as smoke was a problem for several days.

More smoke on the Clearwater River, descending from Lolo Pass.

It rained lightly on the day that we reached Lewiston, ID, and that helped to clear away much of the smoke.  It is still a bit hazy, but a vast improvement over last week.

View overlooking Asotin, WA and the Snake River.

We rode from Asotin, WA to Enterprise, OR on what has to be one of our favorite cycling routes.  The roads are good, the scenery is awesome, and there is very little traffic.  The highlight of the route is dropping into the Grande Ronde River Valley about mid-way.  There is a 13+ mile descent down Rattlesnake Grade, matched with a 10+ mile ascent up Buford Grade.  This was one of the spots where we had considered vacationing during my competitive hill climbing days, and it would have been a perfect training site.

Buford Grade.

We ended up camping in the Grande Ronde Valley.  There were a number of Washington DFW campsites, but they all required a Discovery Pass.  We didn't have one, and had no way to purchase one, so we drove all the way to Troy, OR for an awesome free campsite next to the river with shade and plenty of green grass for Lana.  It was fortunate that we had to drive so far out of our way, as on the return trip we saw five mountain goats and countless deer.  This area is on our list of places to return to in the future.

We are camped south of Enterprise, OR at Hurricane Creek Campground.  We will be spending two nights here before heading on, in order to get laundry done and to make sure we are well stocked, since it may be a while before we are in a town of any significant size.

Second Leg for 2017

We are finally back tagteaming our way through The Rockies.  Forest fires forced us to change our route, which was to have started in Havre, MT, where the plan was to travel southwest toward Missoula, MT.  That planned route crossed The Rockies on Montana Highway 200, which is currently closed due to several forest fires.

There weren't many good options for bypassing the fires, and we needed to be in Missoula to pick up mail.  We finally decided to drive farther west before beginning our journey, which started this August 2nd at Columbia Falls, MT, which is on the west side of The Rockies.

By the way, August 1st was our 2nd anniversary on the road, a day that passed without much celebration. 

The main problem with the fire is that it is re-routing traffic and has caused some campgrounds to close.  As a result, National Forest campgrounds that are near the highways of the detour route are filling up.  We rode an extra 40 miles yesterday before finding a campsite.

We are currently about 20 miles north of MT 200 and smoke is increasing.  The road, which normally has a speed limit of 70 mph, is posted at 35 mph.

Our cell coverage with Verizon has been awesome.  The gaps between coverage are fairly small, even in the mountainous areas that we have been in thus far.

Re-Connected

We are cautiously optimistic that we may be able to start blogging again, due to recently switching Alea's phone to Verizon Wireless.  We won't know for certain until we hit the road again in a few days, for the second leg of this year's journey.

At Akeley, MN.

At Bemidji, MN

The primary reason that we stopped blogging was a lack of internet connectivity in the rural areas of the west (which we were traveling through this past spring), though there were also some other considerations.  We were getting cell service through Republic Wireless, which we have used for a couple of years now.  This year the service went "native" and we got new phones that could be used as hotspots.  That allowed us to drop our AT&T MiFi, which saved us some money.  But our experience over the past three months was abysmal, and Republic Wireless didn't seem very sympathetic to our plight.  

To give a sense of just how bad our cell reception was this past spring, here are a few examples:

1. One Friday evening we drove into Klamath Falls, OR to do some grocery shopping.  The only reception we got was 3G roaming (enough to send a text message).  By chance, we returned to Klamath Falls the very next day by the exact same route, but this time we had four bars of LTE!  What is THAT all about??
2. In May we had stayed near Vale, OR and had strong LTE coverage.  We returned a few weeks later, but could only get 3G roaming.  Huh??
3. We rolled into Rigby, ID and camped less than a half mile from five different cell towers.  No service.  Forty five minutes to an hour later, and we had a strong LTE signal!  How many towns did we drive through like that??  What's the deal??
4. For one two and a half week period, we only had 3G roaming service - just enough to send out a text, with no access to data.  During that period, Sprint's network showed that we used nearly a gigabyte of data, and before the end of the billing period we had exceeded our data cap.  However, our phone's tracking of our data use showed that we had nearly a full gigabyte of unused data.  That was when we decided that enough was enough.

Republic explained to us that there are basically four cell networks in the U.S.: two CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint), and two GSM networks (AT&T and T-Mobile).  Republic piggybacks on either Sprint or T-Mobile.  Our old phones were on the GSM network (T-Mobile), while our new phones were on the CDMA network (Sprint).  They suggested that we could BUY a GSM sim chips for our phones and thus switch carriers (we were considering having one CDMA phone and one GSM phone).  HELLO??  Are you listening?  We're telling you our service has sucked and we aren't too happy about it, and your solution is to reach into our wallet?  And worse yet, we would have to navigate their website on our own to make this purchase (the process was WAY more complicated than simply dropping a sim card in a shopping basket)?  Needless to say, we opted instead to cancel service on Alea's phone.

We have resisted signing up with Verizon in the past, as phones aren't that important to our lives and Verizon tends to be more expensive than everyone else.  But they also work far better in the Western U.S., and camping is very affordable there.  So in essence we are using money that we save camping in the west to offset the added cost of Verizon service.  Having one Verizon line and one Republic line works out about the same as the two Republic lines and the AT&T MiFi that we had last year, and we are able to eliminate the MiFi.  And with unlimited data, we aren't nervously watching our data usage at the end of each billing cycle, hoping that we won't have to pay for extra data.  That makes our life simpler, which is perhaps the best justification for the added cost.

We plan on beginning the second leg of this year's journey in Havre, MT in a few days.  Going forward, we are hoping that we won't be out of cell coverage for more than a few days at a time, which would likely be often enough to continue blogging.  Time will tell.

Captain Joe and Alea.

Jean, Ann and Joe.

We have spent the past week with Alea's siblings at Joe's Lodge, just east of Bemidji.  The weather has mostly been great, and we have managed to avoid the high humidity that can take hold around here in the peak of the summer.  We have had a great time: seeing some sights, doing some boating and dining out a lot.  But it is once again time to resume our wanderings and burn off some of the excess calories...

Our 2017 Amended Plans

Our planned tagteam travels for this year were put on hold 15 miles south of Lake of the Woods, Oregon (on the east slope of the Cascade Mountains, due west of Klamath Falls) this past Monday, May 22nd.  

A lot of factors led us to toward this decision.  While Alea's knee is recovering, it is probably best not to continue pushing things, and instead let things heal at their own pace.  And weatherwise, thus far this year we have too often to found ourselves in the wrong place and time.  We've made it past the cold and wet, but we would be faced with a combination of potential flooding on the east slope of the Sierra Nevadas, coupled with the crush of fellow campers over the Memorial Day weekend, all while dreading the upcoming circumnavigation of Reno, NV.  This prompted a need to reflect and to adjust our travel plans.

At the end of last year, our plans were to spend more time in the west and to linger longer at the campsites we visit.  That sort of pace isn't necessarily compatible with tagteam cycling, as it potentially makes it harder to maintain a level of cycling fitness that helps to keep those cycling miles enjoyable.  So we had never quite figured out how to integrate those goals.

Another thing that we have wanted to accomplish in our travels is to attempt to determine where we might ultimately want to live once we reach true retirement age.  Taking time to investigate specific areas of interest to us while tagteaming hasn't been all that easy to do thus far, so we'll plan breaks to give us the time for that purpose.
  
So we have made the decision to no longer tagteam cycle continuously.  Instead, we will plan some enjoyable tagteam routes, interspersed with breaks for other purposes.  As such, we have the following tagteaming plans for this year:

• In August, we are likely to cycle from Glacier National Park, Montana west through Lolo Pass, following the most arduous part of Lewis and Clark's overland journey of 1806.  But whether we opt to ride all the way out to the Pacific Ocean or instead choose a different destination is up in the air right now.
• In September, we hope to rendezvous in the Pacific Northwest for a week or two of cycling with Travis Hodgdon, whom I had met while touring across the country 32 years ago.
• In October, we hope to ride Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway on our migration south for the purpose of spending the winter in Florida.

In between, we have various rendezvous planned, we will visit some places of interest where we may consider relocating in the future, I'll stop to do some genealogical research here and there, and we will look for campgrounds near some long climbs to help keep us in shape while we are "idling" between our tagteam travels.  One benefit of this approach is that it also means we won't continue to force ourselves to ride through congested urban areas, a major source of stress for us.

Our plan is to be in mostly very rural areas as much as possible.  The main impact of this decision is that we are likely to be out of cell coverage more often than not.  So blogging, social media and other internet activities are likely to fall by the wayside.  But we will attempt to post occasional updates on this blog, and repost the blog to Facebook, as we have done in the past.

Last Blog Post

There seems to be no easy way to keep up with this blog when we lack adequate cell (and thus internet) coverage.  It has been an ongoing problem, one that we were acutely aware of in Mexico, and it persists today, except in the rare instances when we are traveling in urban areas or along interstate highway corridors (our least favorite places to ride).  

South Fork of the Umpqua River at Myrtle Creek, OR.

And the reality is that there is rarely much of anything new to share on a daily basis.  Our daily routine of plotting a course, making adjustments as needed and trying to plan for what lies a few days or weeks ahead has already been covered sufficiently in the past.  So there seems to be little benefit to justify devoting continued time and effort to the task.  I've journaled a lot in the past, and it seems my journaling days may have come to an end.  

Days 18 & 19: Roseburg, OR

We had decent weather for our ride to Roseburg.  It was cool and cloudy, with a following wind.  We've gained back a bit of elevation, but aside from one 2-mile-long grade, the ascents were very gradual.

Great place to park a train.

We would have liked to have pushed on after spending the night in Roseburg on Monday (Day 18), but with the chance of rain being forecast at 100% for most of the day we opted to stay put for an extra day.  On Wednesday the forecast returns to a more normal pattern for this time of year.  By Thursday we should be seeing lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s, with a slight warming trend from there.  And on Friday all the USFS campgrounds should finally be open for the season.

We managed to ride backroads and thus avoid jumping on the freeway for all but one two mile stretch.  The riding was great, with wide shoulders and/or low traffic volumes for most the day.  The exception was a five mile stretch between Drain and Yoncalla, where there were numerous logging and gravel trucks, and in many areas there was pretty much no shoulder.

We are camped at the Douglas County Fairgrounds ($25.50, power, water, adjustable showers, heated bathrooms), which is sandwiched between the freeway and a fork of the Umpqua River.  We are fortunate that we are camped right next to the Douglas County Historical and Cultural Museum, so for $5 each we were able to roam around the museum and stay dry for a couple of hours today.

We also took advantage of our layover to have our oil changed, since the Change Oil light came on while we were driving on Sunday.  It was a bit ahead of schedule, and we are a bit puzzled why that is?  But our gas mileage had climbed up to 22.6 mpg after having been below 21 mpg for most of the winter, so perhaps it is the amount of engine idling that we did during the winter that has caused the need for an oil change?

On our way to Roseburg we had been seeing a slow moving train beside us for a few hours.  As luck would have it, just north of Roseburg the train crossed our route.  I managed to cross before the train arrived, but Alea was not so lucky.  Especially since it parked at that crossing for close to a half hour.  We were glad that there is cell coverage in this area, so at least I didn't have to worry about what was keeping her.  

Days 14 - 17: Curtin, OR

We ended up spending four nights northwest of Eugene, waiting for the worst of the cold and wet weather to pass.  Eugene has a couple of movie houses that show independent films, so we took in a couple of matinee shows curing our stay in order to give us a break from rain.  

A brief sun shower...

And a rainbow.

We had hoped to visit with Alea's Aunt Hazel while we were in town, but as luck would have it, she had moved to Loveland, CO just a day or two before we got to town.  She is in her 90s, and it appears she has gone to live with a niece there.

We returned to Dexter, OR to continue our travels, eventually turning south.  It was a short day - 33 miles - of dodging occasional rain showers, and we split the mileage just about down the middle.  The last five miles of the day were on I-5, where we exited at Curtin, OR.  Once we leave here we will be following the I-5 corridor to Canyonville, OR, but it appears we will need to ride on the freeway for just two miles, along a stretch just north of Oakland.

We are camped at Pass Creek Campground ($25, power, water, adjustable showers), which is located between I-5 and a rail line.  It is a picturesque little park, and it is quieter than we imagined when we first got here. 

The moss is taking over!

Day 13: Dexter, OR

Alea hit the road while it was still 41 degrees out, and we headed toward Hwy 58, our planned route to the Willamette Valley.  There was a fair amount of truck traffic, but generally the shoulders were sufficient. 

One of Lane County's 20 covered bridges.  This one is at Lowell, OR.

I took over when we reached Hwy 58, which meant a climb up to Willamette Pass at 5,128 feet.  Since we were already at a fairly high altitude, it was a fairly easy climb.

The descent was over 4,000 feet of nearly continuous elevation drop,  spread out over about 50 miles or so.  It would have been a screaming fast descent, if it hadn't been for a pretty good headwind blowing up the valley.  But we did make good time.  At the end of the day, I had ridden 48 miles and Alea had covered 27 miles, giving us our longest day thus far of 75 miles.

At some points along Hwy 58 the shoulder narrowed considerably, leaving little room when loaded semis went speeding by.  But there was only one truly white knuckle moment: I was flying downhill at over 30 mph through a long tunnel when I was passed by a semi pulling two trailers.  The pavement was grooved, so it was an unstable descent to begin with, but the bow wave created by the semi added considerably to that, as did the inevitable "snap" caused by the slipstream wrapping around the back of the rearmost trailer as it passed.  Fortunately, there was no uphill traffic in the tunnel, or things could have turned ugly very quickly.  It was a relief to see daylight at the far end of the tunnel.  It didn't help seeing burned out flares along the roadside every few miles, suggesting that mishaps were not that uncommon along this highway.

We left Dexter and drove to west of Eugene, OR to camp at Richardson County Park ($25, power, water, adjustable showers).  It should be raining here for much of the next week, so our intent is to hang out here and do some route planning (we found a lot of closed campgrounds when we crossed the Cascades), to figure out our best route south from here.  Once we have our route determined, we will return to Dexter and continue on from there.

We learned that May 19th is when the remainder of the USFS campgrounds open south of here, which suggests to us that we will likely follow Old Highway 99 and I-5 south as far as Canyonville, OR, where we will head back east over the Cascades toward Klamath Falls.  That route offers several conveniently located county parks spaced about 35-45 miles apart, which is our preferred riding pace.  We aren't looking forward to riding I-5, so it is possible that we might continue searching for other options for when we head out again, which will be on Sunday.

Day 12: Lava Flow Campground, Cascade Lakes, OR

By taking an eastern ring road from Tumalo State Park, we were able to get through Bend with very little hassle.  The route was hilly, but with a good shoulder the entire way, and it helped us to avoid the busy commercial parts of town.

We headed south on US 97, which we had ridden on 30 years ago on a trip from Tillamook, OR to Klamath Falls, OR.  In that span of time, it has become the preferred truck route for traveling north and south, due to the congestion found in the many cities on the I-5 corridor.  As a result, it was the least pleasant riding that we've encountered this year.

Two views of Davis Lake.  The black arm in the upper picture is the namesake
lava flow of our campground.

We opted to leave US 97 south of Sunriver, OR, choosing to head into the Cascade Lakes area.  Doing so would add 20 miles to our route, but it would bypass at least 40 miles of US 97.

But then we checked the weather forecast, which led us to check the long range forecast.  We were heading south, thinking we could find some warmer weather, but instead we were heading into a cold front that was forecast to persist for a full week: lows in the mid to upper 20s, with mostly highs in the low to high 40s.  And there were few options for public campgrounds with power along our route.

Lana had a chance to cool off in the lake.

We stopped along US 97 and did some quick route planning.  It would be wet on the west side of the Cascades, but with lows in the 40s and highs in the upper 50s.  It sounded like the preferred option.  We had a day and a half of decent riding weather left, so decided to see how close we could get to Eugene, OR in that time.

We made it as far as Lava Flow Campground (free, vault toilets) on Davis Lake, which is located at the south end of the Cascade Lakes region.  I rode 47 miles and Alea rode 19 miles of a long, hilly day.

Davis Lake, early morning.

Day 11: Tumalo State Park, OR

I hit the road while the temps were still in the 40s, which isn't my favorite riding weather for doing any kind of distance.  I rode about 16 miles before Alea took over near Smith Rock.  She did the next 21 miles and I finished up with the final 20 miles (57 miles total).

Alea with Smith Rock in the distance.

We took a longer, more scenic route to Sisters than the more direct route via Hwy 126.  We have traveled that route more than once, and while there is a good shoulder, there is also a lot of traffic.  The longer route was more relaxing, and it allowed us to get closer to Smith Rock.

We had hoped to cross the Cascades and visit Eugene, OR, but our preferred route, McKenzie Pass, is under so much snow that it may not open until July.  With that hope dashed, there was still the longer alternate route via Santiam Pass.  But after looking at weather reports and seeing that it was wetter and at least 5 degrees cooler on the west side of the mountains, we decided to head south along the eastern edge of the Cascades.

An alpaca ranch west of Terrebonne.

We set out in the morning with the intent of spending the night in Sisters, but amended our plan en route, turning south a few miles east of Sisters.  Our intent is that in September we will end our route where it intersects today's route. 

We needed to do some shopping in Bend (at the REI store), and Tumalo State Park ($21, dry camping, water available, adjustable showers) was convenient for that purpose, and the detour there only added another 10 miles or so to our day.  We have wanted to camp at Tumalo on other occasions when we have passed through this area, but this was our first visit.  And we were lucky to find a campsite, as the park was full a few hours after we arrived (on a Monday, no less!).

Views at Tumalo State Park.

By not crossing the Cascades at this time we are likely about a week ahead of schedule.  Possibly more, if high snowpack in the Sierras keeps us on the east side of the mountains.  We will figure that out as we get farther south. 

Days 8, 9 & 10: Prineville, OR

Day 8 (Friday) was mostly a day of headwinds and ascents, so it was some fairly fatiguing riding for both of us.  Alea started off first, covering the first 13 miles or so.

Painted Gorge.

Not far west of Dayville we came to Painted Gorge, one of the unique geologic features of the area - a crack in the earth through which the south fork of the John Day River flows (the name relates to the native pictographs on the upper gorge walls).  Also in the area is Sheep Rock and the Painted Hills, both areas we've visited on multiple occasions, otherwise they would have been worth a stop on this trip.

A few miles past the Gorge it was my turn to ride the remaining 25 miles or so to Mitchell, OR.  That was our original destination for the day, at the city campground in the middle of town.  But cold weather was forecast for Day 9, and we didn't like the prospect of waiting out the weather in Mitchell.  So we pressed on, thinking we could camp at Ochoco Divide, which was another 17 miles or so farther down the road.  To help accomplish that, Alea took to the road again, riding about 7 miles and thus giving me time to recover for the upcoming climb.  Then I took over for the remainder of the day.

West of Painted Gorge.  That is Sheep Rock in the distance, just behind Alea.

It was just our luck that when we arrived at Ochoco Divide Campground we found it closed, with some sort of construction project in progress.  We were about 34 miles east of Prineville, with the nearest campground about 20 miles away.  We didn't feel we had enough left in the tank to get that far, but it was a steady descent the entire way, so I decided to see how far we could get.  We covered just short of half the distance to the next campground before the winds and my fatigue suggested it was time to call it a day.  We could have camped for free in Ochoco National Forest or stayed at a campground on Ochoco Lake, but we opted instead to drive all the way into Prineville, so that we could have power for the chilly nights that were forecast, to get caught up on shopping and to have a rest day.  We also felt we owed it ourselves to dine out, since we both had exerted significant effort over the total of 66 miles that we covered on our longest and hilliest day so far.

"Bunch of Lost Souls Just Hanging Around."

On Day 9, the forecast high was for mostly cloudy weather in the mid-50s, with a pretty good breeze coming out of the northwest.  So we made it our rest day.  We drove to Redmond, OR to do laundry, get a few groceries and stock up on dog food for Lana.  We opted to take in a late afternoon matinee at the Pine Theater in Prineville, in order to have a place to get out of the wind.

Day 10 was our chance to fill in the gap that we had skipped, from the western edge of the Ochoco National Forest to Prineville.  So we returned to where we had left off two days earlier, and I set off in thermal tights and jersey for the shallow 20 mile descent back into town.  Once again I battled the wind, but it was far less of an issue on such a short ride and being well rested.

It has warmed up a bit since yesterday, and we are looking forward to the warming trend continuing over the next several days.

We have made our first major route change for this first leg of this year's travels.  From Sisters, OR we had hoped to cross over McKenzie Pass to Eugene, which was to be our approximate ending point in September (now it will be at Sisters).  But the pass probably won't open until July, plus it is both cooler and wetter on that side of the Cascades than it is on this side.  So once we get to Sisters we will head south, returning to our originally planned route around Klamath Falls.  And the possibility remains for more changes.  As we head south we will discover how double the normal precipitation in most of the Sierra Nevadas might impact our plans.

Day 7: Dayville, OR

The warm weather continues, so we got an early start this morning.  Add in the fact that we were following the John Day River downstream the whole way AND we had a tailwind, and you can guess that we had a pretty easy day today.  Alea again rode first, covering the first 20 miles to Clyde Holliday State Park, then I rode the final 25 to Dayville.

Strawberry Mountain.

We are camped at Southern Fork RV ($25, power, community water, showers, wifi) along the banks of the swollen South Fork of the John Day River.  It has turned into a hot day (currently 86 degrees), but we certainly aren't complaining.  This is a very small campground, with just a dozen or so sites, but there is a lot of space between campsites.  Plus there is a free book exchange that actually has some decent book titles.

Today was the first day that we could try out our new Shimano cycling sandals, which we bought on close-out in January.  We love 'em, and I suspect we will be wearing them most of the time, except when it is cold out or when rain is likely.  They are even comfortable to walk around in, which isn't something I have come to expect in a cycling shoe.

Lana's den behind the seats of our van.

This end of the John Day River valley is drier than at Prairie City, and while scenic, it isn't as spectacular.  But there is a lot of interesting geology around here, and it gets more interesting just a bit farther down the road.

Day 6: Prairie City, OR

The weather couldn't have picked a better day to turn nice.  We cycled through some of our favorite places in Oregon, and the weather was awesome - reaching into the 70s!

Heading west from Phillips Lake took us through Oregon's gold mining country, which is centered around Sumpter.  We've been to Sumpter plenty of times in the past, so we didn't bother to go a few miles off route to go into town.  But there are plenty of interesting sites in the area.  There is a steam railway, the Stump Dodger, and a huge dredge used from 1934 to 1950, which left huge piles of river rock tailings all along the rivers and streams in the area.  This area was also the backdrop for the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood movie Paint Your Wagon.  It is hard not to think of them singing I Was Born Under A Wand'rin' Star as we traversed the area.

The Stump Dodger.

We had three 5,000+ foot summits today.  Alea took the first and her knee did remarkably well.  I took over from there.  She rode the first 16 miles and I did 33 miles, including a great 7.5 mile downhill into Prairie City.

It is hard to beat the vista coming into Prairie City on a clear day.  The green fields, pine forests and snow capped Strawberry Mountain is a scene that is among the most beautiful in the west.  It's isolation from major population centers is the sole reason that it has remained such a scenic treasure.

An Oregon Trail memorial, with Strawberry Mountain lost in the clouds.

We camped at Depot Park Campground ($20, full hookups, heated bathrooms, $1.75 10 minute showers), which is a city park.  The site is shared with the DeWitt Museum, which is dedicated to the history of the Sumpter Valley Railroad.