The Best

SAT 8/7 -- Redmond to [between McKenzie Bridge and Blue River] (61)

Wow. And again I say, wow. By universal acclaim -- and I am in complete agreement with this judgment -- this was the best ride of the tour. My son Eric picked a fantastic day to start riding with us for a few days(*). Why? Spectacularly beautiful summer day. Spectacular forested mountain scenery. Excellent road, good shoulder, low traffic. Excellent bakery in the town of Sisters, a little shy of 20 miles into the ride(**), to power us along -- a *really* excellent bakery, of which we've seen very few along the route. (How do people LIVE without access to good bread?!?)

And of course for me the icing on the cake was having Eric join the party (see photo 1). Woo-hooooo! Eric, to the small gaggle of riders we happened to head out with, about 200 yards into the ride: "Sheesh, don't you guys EVER take a break?!?"

We started the beautiful summer morning -- of which we've had an amazing number on this tour -- with a 20-mile, mostly flat ride to the charming little town of Sisters (pop 969), so named because of the nearby Three Sisters mountains(***) --

see photos #3 (from the east, before we started to climb McKenzie Pass) and 4 (from just after the pass). There was a lot of activity in and around Sisters in part because of a nearby forest fire. We rode past the firefighters' camp, and we could see where the smoke was originating, to the south of us by several miles. In fact, we'd noticed the haze all the way back before we even got to Redmond. Which was a good thing for the quality of our ride through the area, because it meant that the smoke was blowing away from the mountains, and wouldn't obscure them. 

From Sisters we climbed steeply (2000') for the next 10 or so miles through beautiful forest up to McKenzie Pass, at just over a mile above sea level. Near the top of the pass the landscape changes very dramatically, to mile after mile of barren volcanic rubble. Because there is so little vegetation, it looks like the result of a recent event, but the eruption that caused it all happened about 2,000 years ago -- which, when you think about it, IS a very recent event, in geological terms.

After we crested the pass -- and after a few false starts -- we began a long, 20-mile descent that dropped us down about 3,500' through a gorgeous, green and lush and sun-dappled pine forest. The road surface was perfect (****), and there was surprisingly little traffic, so even I, Mr. Uber-Cautious, was able to manage some high speed coasting. About 3/4 of the way down Eric and I pulled off the highway and walked our bikes a quarter mile down a little side road until it ended at a campsite beside a beautiful feeder stream to the McKenzie River, where we stopped and ate lunch. Lovely.

The day could hardly get any better, I thought. Wrong. After lunch we continued our way down the mountain -- we still had another 500' of descent -- alongside the McKenzie River, with our destination still about 10 miles away. As we drew close, maybe 3-4 miles from the end, we started to see some intriguing hand-drawn signs by the side of the road: "ice cream social," they said, and "everyone welcome," and, better still, "8/7, 1-7pm." Well -- (a) I like ice cream, and (b) I qualify as a member of the select and specifically welcomed group ("everyone"), and (c) 8/7 is today, and (d) the time is about 2:30, which is ... let's see ... after 1 and before 7. Bingo. We pulled off the road, following an arrow on an "ice cream social this way" sign.

The side road we turned onto was a beautiful little 3-4 mile stretch of the official Trans-Am route that we were supposed to skip because our lodgings were out on the parallel main highway. But I'm very glad we took this little road, off the highway, right next to the river (including access to an old covered bridge), on which we encountered one vehicle, I think, maybe two. And right near the end of the road, just before it reconnected with the main highway, was the McKenzie Community Center, site of the area's annual ice cream social, which just happened to be scheduled at the intersection of two unique events in the history of the world: (a) the most beautiful summer afternoon ever, and (b) Eric's and my visit to this part of the planet. To the sounds of, first, a guitar player, and second, a harpist, we settled in at the red-checked-tablecloth-covered picnic tables and dug into a cheeseburger and corn-on-the-cob (Eric) and a tied-for-the-best-ever mixed berry (blue, marion, and black) cobbler, with ice cream, I've ever tasted (me, obviously). The other tied-for-first cobbler? The encore serving I had just seconds after I made the first one disappear. The only imperfect aspect of the entire day was my table selection. I was hoping to chat with some of the locals while we noshed, but alas I picked Duane's table, where we got chatted at incessantly by a man who Eric and I both suspected was a little off-plumb, if you catch my drift. Duane's blathering filled a much-needed gap, as someone cleverer than me once said.

Eventually we extricated ourselves from the Duane encounter -- on the plus side: no awkward silences! -- waddled on down to the end of the side road where it reconnected to the main highway, and doubled back about a mile to our lodgings for the evening, Harbick's Country Inn, where we found that the wonders of the day still weren't over. Hugh, Eric, and I scored a BIG room, with 3 double beds -- i.e., no sleeping on the floor for the Trans-Am interloper. Dinner out was at the [something] Skillet Restaurant next door, where we were attended to by a waitress named... Sage! There's more than one!

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(*) Thank you, Gary and Carly, for inviting Eric to your perfectly timed wedding (next Saturday) in a perfectly positioned location (Redmond).

(**) Eric was a late entry in the flat competition (see photo #2);  he discovered this one as we were leaving the bakery in Sisters. Barring a truly epic next couple of days, I think it's gonna be tough for him to contend for the main crown, which Hugh has all but locked up. But it is the case that with this one stroke Eric vaulted into the lead in terms of flats-per-mile -- about .05 at the time of the photograph. Hugh would need approximately 47-1/2 flats each day for the last four days of riding in order to match that rate, and I don't think even he can do that. (Eric's flat rate was down substantially by the end of the day, to a much more modest .0167 per mile.)

(***) In truth I have no idea whether this explains the town's name, but it makes LOTS of sense.

(****) Near-perfect; about midway down I hit a big... I don't know, a hole of some kind, which came out of nowhere, and really rattled the old bones. Eric hit it, too. Later in the day when we were all hanging out and talking about the ride, it became clear that everybody hit the phantom bump. Must have been some sort of ditch across the road; we couldn't all have ridden across the exact same patch of pavement.

(Sent from my iPhone)