These past three days we have climbed over 5 mountain passes and cycled around 220 miles so they have been difficult. Eastern/central Oregon is kinda desert like with little greenery; very hot and dry, especially in the afternoons when most of the hills seem to appear! I've lost track of which mountain range we are crossing currently and I'm not sure that I really need to know the names anymore, I just do it. Apparently tomorrow is our last big climb...well I've heard that one before but with just 3 days left after tomorrow, maybe there's some truth in that. We have to start going down at some point surely to reach the ocean!
On the ride into John Day we passed a mammal fossil museum (which I might add involved an extra 4 MILES to get to...the things we do for our loved one hey!). Robin really enjoyed this, being a male and all interested in fossils and stuff so it was well worth the detour of course!
In Mitchell we stayed at the Sky Hook Motel which as you might guess from the name, was up on a hill and had a fantastic view of the little (very) town. It was mine and Jeff's turn to cook so we decided we'd all go out. There was one cafe in town which we learnt from Mike (speed demon and therefore killing time around town until we all arrived) was shutting at 7pm because the owners dog had just come out of animal hospital. Oh and they couldn't serve 14 of us all at once so we had fun trying to all get fed by 7pm in relays! In addition to this drama, we had further panic amongst camp that night. The 'supermarket' had shut down and the nearest place to get a pint of milk was 47 miles away. The shoppers (me and Jeff) concluded therefore that we had an Apollo 13 situation ("Is there anything you have in the aircraft that you can eat?"). "Houston, we have a problem"; we summised that we would have a 'scrounge' breakfast (basically eating anything you can find in the van to keep you going for the first 47 miles tomorrow morning until we get to civilisation and a decent sandwich). With proper 'food police' control, this operation this morning turned out to be a sucessful one! And you'll be pleased to know that we are all now fed and watered appropriately and hopefully this 'rationing' will not need to happen again.
We are today, in Redmond, a town of 7, 000 people so we again intend on eating out....no I have not lost any weight cycling 60 miles a day for 3 months!
Very excitingly (!) we have crossed the 4000miles pedalled mark today - that's a very long way!
We have uploaded a few more photos...
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