July 22, 2021
Day 71 - Baker city, OR, to Prairie city, OR
An end to the maps
This morning we made good time getting ready, ate oatmeal and said goodbye to Nancy. Mark went to get some McDonald's so the rest of us headed up the road. We wanted to beat the heat and it was actually bit cold for the first hour. We had 3 consecutive passes today and about 57 miles to do. Each pass was about the same difficulty. I think the climb of each took about an hour.
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At the top of the second pass, we met an eastbound rider who had stayed with our extended group (david, Tim, Conor, and the Boston boys) at spoken hostel in Mitchell. I think we will be there in 2 days. At the bottom of the second peak, there is a small restaurant/convenience store where we stopped for a cold soda and oreos. Just when we were about to leave, mark caught up. We hadn't seen him since he left for breakfast. He was also with Jeremy, who I hadn't seen since riggins. We started on the final hill and it seemed more gradual than the last ones, although it was the highest of them all. After reaching the top, I decided to just go straight down so I could make it to the post office in prairie city before they closed.
The wind was brutal on the way down and there were several times that I had to pedal hard to even go 10mph. The views were stunning though and luckily there was no uphill. I went right to the USPS and they didn't have my letter. I left the last two maps in Missoula and Chris mailed them out on Saturday. The lady behind the counter was really nice though and offered to mail it to Eugene for me when it gets in. I was surprised I beat the post office from Missoula to here, but she seemed to think that was normal.
We went to the grocery store, had a smoothie at the coffee shop, and rode down to the RV park. It's apparently a city park that had RV sites, hiker biker rates ($8) but they did have a coin operated shower, which was lame since we don't have any change. I mentioned it to an rv'er and he let us use his outdoor shower. It was a bit weird since he watched us shower. We did have bathing suits on, but still..
We met a bunch of the people at the park and everyone is friendly. I think it will be a nice place to camp. In general, Oregonians seem really nice. I will say that some teens showed up at 11 pm to yell and play at the kids park. They were very oblivious to people in tents only 20 yards from them. Luckily mark got up and told them off. Finally, we are old enough to yell at dumb teenagers, I mean, kindly ask them to shut up or leave.
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Mileage:67
Altitude gain:4334
Today's ride: 67 miles (108 km)
Total: 3,706 miles (5,964 km)
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