At the Bike inn with Christy
Prairie City
Lunch time !!
Israel broke his fastest speed!!!
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving” -Lao Tzu
Saturday, June 8, 2013
ALL GOOD VIBES AT OREGON'S END
We've made it past our two week mark and the list of interesting people and places continues to grow. In Mount Vernon, we met Christy, a great cyclist who runs The Bike Inn with the help of her 3 goats, 2 bunnies and her dog Barbie. Christy was super welcoming and an awesome host. She gave us farm fresh eggs and lots help with our bikes. She also had an extensive collection of Disney movies on VHS. Nothing like making pancakes and watching Babe before a big day of cycling. The landscape has slowly turned more inviting and less harsh as we continue east through Oregon. There is more ranching here and lots of herding. We stopped for lunch at Prairie City and met up with our new friends from San Diego, Sara, Matt and Phil. They are doing the Transamerica as well and we expect to see them a lot. After a great lunch in Prairie City we pressed on towards the Austin City Junction which is literally a consists of a weird restaurant/country store and a rocky "campsite." The climb to the junction was abnormally hard since we had a decent headwind. At the top of the hill we found an amazing view of the Strawberry mountain range. We finally reached Austin City junction after a very rewarding run down the other side of the mountain. The next morning we were extremely grateful to be able to pitch our packs and trailers in the car with Phil's wife, Patty as we all headed to Baker City. We had a wonderful day's ride with no weight or bad weather! Thanks Patty! Riding with no weight had us feeling like triathletes flying up the hills. We climbed 2 mountain passes, each with summit's over 5,000 ft in elevation. The ride down from the last pass towards Baker city was an incredible downhill rush. Jordan and Israel broke their speed record and reached 40+ mph. Probably not the safest thing ever. . . But totally worth it! Natalee on the other hand..has a brain...And uses it. The trail then took us over a beautiful lake with a small Bald Eagle sanctuary as well as an awkward Alpaca farm. As we neared Baker City, another headwind slowed us down but we eventually reached town in time to catch Barley's Brew Pub. After a much deserved and thirst quenching brew we met Kurt, an incredibly friendly fella riding motorcycles from Seattle to take in the vistas of Oregon. We talked to Kurt for a few hours and shared our traveling stories along with our mission for our ride. Before parting ways with Kurt he gave us his card with a very handsome cash donation. We are incredibly thankful and mega grateful for his selfless act of philanthropy. Needless to say we are excited to see what Idaho holds for us and we welcome it with open minds and hearts. Till next time!
Strawberry mountains. Oregon
Old monster truck wago
Super awesome Kurt!!! Thanks again
Beautiful view of the lake in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
You can see a glimpse of snow-capped mountains that appeared on our ride in to Baker City.
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You folks are super inspiring. I know this isn't a race of any type, but do you have any two week mileage summary? How are you with pace vs what you had expected?
ReplyDeleteThanks! That is what we love to hear! How did you find our blog? We have someone keeping track of all of our mileage so we can go ahead and post what we have so far if you would like (and if we tech. challenges people can figure out how to) us to. We plan on keeping about a 55 mile/day average in order to have a good chance of finishing before school starts back in August. We are probably a little under that average right now up we intended on starting lower then picking it up as we get stronger. Our longest day has been 70miles but we had a few days in the 30s when we stopped and did a lot and we have had two days where we decided to stay in the same town for another day. Keep following and let us know if you have ANY more questions.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are amazing!! I am sure you will come across many many more great people and places. All that you guys are doing is really impressive, and I don't know how you do it... The only thing I know for sure is that there is a lot of people back home, that misses you, prays for all of you, wishes you the very best, and we are here if you need anything. Keep enjoying, and don't stop!!
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