June 19, 2006
Elkton, OR - Oakland, OR: Hello, Wayne!
We had a short day today. We would be meeting an internet friend from the touring list, Wayne Estes. Wayne and his wife Karolyn had graciously invited us to spend the night at their home. This would be our first real bed since Portland. Wayne would ride with us to La Pine, OR before continuing on his own tour.
I don't know why I got up so early. Habit, I suppose. We were up at 5:45 and off for breakfast at Arlene's by 6:30. Having coffee in the morning is very important to Jacinto. The instant Folger's we purchased didn't taste right. The coffee bags didn't taste right either. It was real coffee or no coffee, and Jacinto definitely needed coffee to jump start his morning. My favored routine is to eat oatmeal with craisins and almonds and hit the road. It must be that Type A personality - I need to get on the road as soon as possible or my stomach starts flip flopping. You'd think after the thousands of miles I've toured, I wouldn't be the nervous type. Once I get on the road everything is fine, but until then . . . . Jacinto and I didn't talk much at breakfast. I knew he 'needed' his coffee. He knew I wanted to get on the road. I choked down as much of my pancakes and eggs as I could. It was just too much food on my nervous stomach. I longed to get on the road.
The road was fairly busy but with a minimum of logging trucks. The further we got out of town, the less traffic. The terrain of the day was climbing rollers. I am much better at a long steady climb than climbing rollers.
We stopped at a rest area to use the Porta Potty. I had left over fancy dessert from last night's dinner in a large container. I took that out of my big trunk bag along with my vest in order to reach some snacks at the bottom. We had gone three forth's of a mile before I realized I had forgotten to repack the dessert and vest. The dessert I could live without. The vest was important - I had been wearing it on a daily basis so far. I tried to get Jacinto's attention by ringing my bell and yelling. The river was just loud enough he couldn't hear me. He was too far away for me to easily catch up. I decided to turn around and ride quickly back to the rest stop. When I got there a car was just pulling out. I crossed my fingers the driver hadn't seen my vest and taken it. Nope - still there. Whew. I chatted a moment with an elderly man who was interested in my recumbent bicycle. Finally I told him I needed to go as my husband didn't know I had turned around. As I was heading back up river, here came Jacinto down river. He had waited and waited for me and turned around. He crossed over to my side and stopped next to me. Jacinto gave me a huge, hard hug and said with great emotion in his voice that he was afraid I had been hit by a vehicle and that he would be coming back to an accident scene. I felt terrible at giving him such a fright. I explained that I was so close to the rest stop that I thought I could retrieve my vest and be back before he knew I was even gone. I probably could have, if I hadn't spoken with the retired man. I felt loved, but guilty the rest of the morning. After that Jacinto made me ride in front of him so he would know where I was at all times, instead of just checking his mirror.
We had more and more climbing. Wayne had given us back road instructions to get to his home in Oakland. We were hoping to get away from the logging trucks once we turned on to Green Valley Road. The instant we turned, a logging truck followed us. While we took a break at the intersection Jacinto grumbled about the trucks being everywhere. We had a good laugh on him as that was the only logging truck and practically the only vehicle we saw on all of Green Valley Road. It's a great cycling road. I tried to call Wayne several times along the way to let him know we were almost to town, but had no service. When I did get ahold of him he seemed a bit surprised we were to town already. We should have slept in. I told Wayne we wanted to go into town and find some postcards to send back home. Wayne sent us to the general store.
We had done substantial climbing in our short ride. I hadn't done a good job of eating my breakfast or continuing to fuel my body. We had small snacks and Gatorade several times along the way. We had B&J sandwiches when we turned onto Green Valley Road. I don't know just what my problem was. I was having an off day. The road seemed very long and difficult. Jacinto wasn't having a hard time at all. I drug into town.
I told Jacinto I needed to eat something - maybe I'd get my energy back. I called Wayne and let him know we were in town, but were going to get a bite to eat. He decided to walk over and join us at The Tavern. I had salty french fries in mind - but chips were served with the sandwiches at The Tavern. Jacinto and I both had french dip sandwiches. They looked so good that Wayne ended up ordering one also. Jacinto had a hard time dividing his attention between our conversation with Wayne and the World Cup on the bar TV.
I felt somewhat better, but completely lacking energy, after eating. This was probably my most difficult day, riding wise. It was quite puzzling to me as it was such a short day and hadn't had THAT much climbing.
Karolyn gave us the tour of their lovely, historic home. We washed laundry and had a pampering shower.
We did a bit of bike maintainence. Jacinto's rear shifter wasn't working well. Wayne thought it might be the cassette was a bit loose and tightened it up. I cleaned both bikes thoroughly. It had been hard to keep them clean to John Cunningham Standards with all of the rain. I had picked up a pink towel alongside the road and cut that into pieces to wipe the frame down with. That towel lasted me the entire trip!
We had a scrumptious dinner of grilled salmon with baked potatoes and broccoli, accompanied by wine. We all had a good laugh as I had carried a $6.95 'individual' (even I wouldn't try to eat this large of 'individual' size) cheesecake from the fancy restaurant last night. Wayne and Karolyn had visited there earlier in the week and had brought a chocolate pudding cake. We all had small slices of both desserts! Yum!
We spent some of our evening hours trying to find the leak in Jacinto's sleeping pad. With much difficulty, Wayne and Jacinto found a small pinhole leak right on the seam at the corner. The directions said just to put a dab of glue on small pinhole leaks. We decided to put a patch as insurance.
We were in bed late by our standards, at 11 PM. It was luxurious to have a bed with sheets and to be able to walk barefoot to the bathroom. Oh, and a full size pillow! Kings never had it so good!
Today's ride: 29 miles (47 km)
Total: 403 miles (649 km)
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