When I wrote about Wednesday I was wrong to suggest that we were back
in the pine forests -- apparently, that was just a feature of the high
passes we went over, which were in national forests. Down at lower
elevations this ride was still in a mostly arid land. Although there
are still more trees lurking around here and there than there were a
couple days ago -- a hint of things to come.
We started the ride out of the town of John Day with a looooong slide
downstream alongside the John Day River. The river makes agriculture
possible in the small valley, but the surrounding hills are still
quite desert-y. It was a great way to start the day. We (I was riding
with Hugh) clipped along at about 18-20 mph on a smooth, almost empty
road, with wide shoulder, for a little over 30 miles, all the way into
Dayville (pop 138), where we stopped at a perfect small-town cafe --
the sensibly-named Dayville Cafe -- on a perfect summer morning. The
effervescent Tiffany served us up some tasty apple pie a la mode and
coffee (me) and an eggs and hash browns breakfast (Hugh), which we sat
outside and ate on the cozy front porch. It got very cozy -- at
various points Mike, Dennis, Clive, and Robin and Lucille all joined
in the fun around the small table, as did Lily, a young (23? 24?)
woman we had passed on the road a little while earlier who was on a
solo self-contained ride. (Not the whole Trans-Am, but still...) It
was a nice little spontaneous gathering. And cozy.
Once I learned that Lily was a math major I posed the question to her
that had been bugging me ever since the 45th parallel sign just
outside of New Meadows. When I blogged about that I wanted to make a
smart-ass comment along the lines of: so now you know a lot of places
where I'm NOT, and you can narrow down where I am as being somewhere
along that XX,000 mile line. Only I wasn't smart enough to fill in the
blank. So I asked her: If you assume that the earth is a perfect
sphere with a radius of 4,000 miles (that's close enough, I think),
how would you calculate the circumference at the 45th parallel? She
pondered (or seemed to -- possibly she was just being polite to an old
man), but didn't offer a solution, although she said she was sure
there was one.
A few miles outside of Dayville we rode into Picture Gorge, so named,
I think, because you have to take a picture there -- which I did (see
photo of Hugh riding into the Gorge). Picture Gorge is a beautiful,
deeply-cut canyon that runs for several miles along the John Day
River, just before the turn-off to the John Day Fossil Beds National
Monument, where we stopped and saw many interesting things, including
a life-size replica of the John Day sabertooth tiger. John Day (the
town), Dayville, the John Day River, the John Day Fossil Beds,
ThursDAY -- dude's even got an ancient beast named after him. As far
as I could tell he was just an early settler in the region, but
clearly he also had a top-notch PR team working their tails off for him.
All throughout this tour I've been conflicted about side trips like
the one to the fossil beds, which was off-route by 2 miles, and where
I spent about an hour of non-riding time. On the one hand, you're in
places with interesting things to see, and you may never be there
again, so you should stop and see what there is to see. On the other
hand, side trips add extra miles to what may already be a long day in
the saddle, and -- and this is the factor that causes me the most
trouble -- they extend the riding hours deeper into the afternoon
heat. In the heat I tend to wilt, and lose all my ooomph on the bike.
I enjoyed stopping off at the fossil beds, but by the time we left --
maybe noon or so -- it was uncomfortably hot, and cranking up for
more. Not only that, but we still faced most of a big climb (up 2000'
from Dayville) and over 30 miles of riding to reach our target. Insta-
regret. And, as expected, the afternoon was kind of a difficult slog.
But I made it, aided in no small part by the fact that the last few
miles were a long descent into Mitchell (pop 170).
Our accommodations were at the almost-adequate Sky Hook Motel, where
we took over all 6 of the motel's (un-air-conditioned) rooms for the
night. I shouldn't speak ill of the Sky Hook -- it had what we needed
(beds, walls & ceilings, running water), it was high on a hill to
catch the lovely evening breeze, it was better than camping in the no-
shower, walk-across-the-road-to-a-latrine public park we could see
below us, and basically, to anyone who's ever stayed at the Top Hat
Motel in Jeffrey City WY, it was The Ritz.
One of Mitchell's surprises was that there was no grocery store --
there had been one, but it closed its doors a month or so ago. And it
was 45 miles to the closest town where we could find groceries.
Lucille and I were on cooking duty -- not for that night's dinner (we
had already opted for eating out), but we were responsible for the
next day's breakfast and lunch. We did a thorough inventory of the
food bins and determined that we had plenty of food on hand for both a
morning meal of reasonably healthy food (if not necessarily all the
types of food one would want for breakfast) and a pared-down lunch
(e.g., bread, lunch meat, and cheese for sandwiches, but not a lot of
tomatoes, and virtually no fruit). But breakfast was the key; if we
could get bellies sufficiently full in the morning, that would power
everyone through the 45 miles to the town with food. So we recommended
a "food scrounge" for breakfast -- we'd just put everything out on the
tables and count on everyone to be reasonable and circumspect in what
they took. A bold and slightly risky plan, but the best option under
the circumstances, we thought, and we had confidence it would work. We
discussed the plan at the map meeting, and everyone said ok.
Speaking of food, there was also a slight hitch in the dinner out
plan: (a) Mitchell had only one place to eat -- a grungy little cafe/
bar called the Little Pines; (b) the Little Pines kitchen was too
small to handle a crowd of 14 all at once -- we'd have to go there and
eat in waves; and (c) the Little Pines was closing early that night,
so we'd have to be completely in and out by 7:00. Well, we've overcome
many challenges on the tour, and we overcame this one, too.
But what about the breakfast and lunch "food scrounge" the next day,
you ask? Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting food-related adventure
of the 2010 van-supported Trans-Am tour as it eats its way across the
USA.
(Sent from my iPhone)
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