June 8, 2014
Day 11 - Richland to Oxbow: Another Day - Another Pass!
This morning was a beautiful morning and this camp sight has been great. There are NO bugs...you could have slept with the screen open. It was just a nice restful place to sleep. No River or creek to listen to but we did have lots of crickets and the sprinklers in the field right next to our tent.
We were up early as were Janet and Step. Janet got her wheel back and is rearing to go. We were all packing up pretty near the same pace when all of a sudden they were loaded and ready to roll. Just then Jack yells $#€#%> flat tire. That put us about thirty minutes behind schedule. The good news is we had those new tubes!
I wasn't to eager to roll out in fact was hinting at a day off but we decided to head out......just as we rolled out of the park and on to the road Jack says "stop-my tire is on backwards". Guess he was in a hurry.....so we stopped fixed that and headed up the Pass 3653.
Yes - this will be pass #6. This one was 6 miles to the top and was 3653 ft. It is getting warmer too so we were very glad when we headed down. We had plans to go as far as Brownlee Dam however at Oxbow we decided to stop. If we were to go on just a little we would then need to have a very long day in two days.....we decided on two shorter days then back to 40+ days.
Here is the deal....this is much harder than we anticipated. The climbs are so long and hard it wears you down. Then they are often followed by rollers and not really down. Looking at the days coming up we are in for some difficult days. Tonight we are deciding if we need to take a whole day off and let the legs recover. We will know in the morning....tomorrow is supposed to be the steepest of any we have done yet!! Today was 1857ft. This is our 11th day of 1500ft or more a day. The day of the two passes was 2500ft. Tomorrow is about 2000ft.....yikes!! Maybe this is why I am tired.
Tonight we are at the Idaho Power Copperfield Park. Another great RV/Tent camping site right on the Oxbow Dam and the Pine Creek is running right by our tent. If you ask me it is a River....the creeks up here are as wide and flowing as rivers. We are about a block from the Idaho border but we have to back track out of here and go around about ten miles before we will cross on our bikes.
Today's ride: 30 miles (48 km)
Total: 433 miles (697 km)
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