Well the time is amost here for us to say goodbye to our bikes and I have to be honest, I've loved this experience but I'll be glad to see the back of them (the bikes that is, not our fellow cyclists!). We have arrived in Alsea today, just 30 miles from the coast, although tomorrow will be approximately a 66 mile day as when we reach the coast, we then cycle another 30 or so miles down the coast to Florence, our final destination. Today we came just 50 miles from Harrisburg. The original plan was to stop over at Colburg last night in the Truckers motel, but we ended up cycling a furhter 12 miles onto Harrisburg when Steve arrived in the van at the Truckers Motel and saw what we would be staying in. His words were 'it's a complete dive'. Anyway those extra 12 miles were worth it as we ended up staying in a rather nice hotel/resort type place with a pool and hot tub. Well we have a fair amount of money left for accommodation so we have to spend it some way or another!
Two days ago, Jeff's son Eric joined us from Anchorage (Alaska), where he has been living with his girlfriend for approximately 18 months. He is cycling the last 4 days with us and has fortunately had one of the most beautiful rides ever with us (2 days ago-Redmond to Blue River). We had the McKenzie Pass to climb at 5,500 ft which was beautiful.
North and Middle Sister volcanoes in the McKenzie Pass region of Oregon. The McKenzie Pass region is lava and volcanoes in all directions as far as the eye can see. At the top we were surrounded by hundreds of years old volcanic rock which had at one point been hot lava flow. We could also see the snow topped three sisters mountains in the distance. This was followed by a descent which was seemingly endless through forested narrow switch back roads! A little scary coming down but lovely! The Cascade mountains included a 4000 ft descent - dry desert scrub to bleak snow capped peaks and lava fields to lush green soaring forests. I have ensured Eric though that we havn't always had this type of luxury on the TransAm so he shouldn't give his dad a hard time about 'living it up'.
Fundraising News
Just been told that our cycle ride is slightly further than the distance from London Heathrow to Delhi, India!! America is a big place! Oh and we've raised a little over 30p a mile, so far. If you would like to support us, please just click on www.justigiving.com/bikeamerica. Thanks so much.
Fundraising News News
Just found out that we've made the South Wales Echo!... How exciting!
Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts
Monday, 9 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
John Day to Mitchell to Redmond (yes these all sound like people's names but in America they are places)
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...
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...
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Oregon!!!
Yesterday saw us cross yet another time zone, 3500 miles, thousands of ft of climbing once again, and the border into Oregon!! I can't quite believe we're in our final state with only 8 days left! The past two days we have been cycling through Hell's Canyon, which begins in Idaho and goes into Oregon. Despite it's scenic beauty, we were both glad to leaving it behind today; after 2 days of the same scenery, extremely hot weather (as there is no breeze down there in the canyon) and loads of hills,it all got a bit too much! Glad to report though that today we have arrived in a city of 7,000 people, and have the luxury of a motel and rest day tomorrow. Perfect. I thought that as time went on I wouldn't need my rest days as much but it seems as though just as you're conquering one aspect of suffering, so another one comes along, and you are therefore ALWAYS in need of a rest day.
Two nights ago we camped in the grounds of a motel and RV park in a town called Cambridge. This was fine, despite the huge RV next to us whom had a little yappy dog that decided to bark until all hours and poop all over the lawn we were camping on - when we arrived there were sticks poking out of the ground about every 2 metre square where the early arrivers of the group had scouted out dog poop! After about 20 minutes of Robin and I 'debating' where the tent should go (we always spend this long 'debating' as we have different criteria; I like it flat as I cannot sleep whilst rolling down hill and Robin likes the ground soft so it doesn't bend the pegs. We both agree on the fact that it should be in the shade which helps but trying to find all criteria on a ground full of dog poop is quite trying! We finally get it up just in time for dinner (luckily we were not cooking!). The highlight of this town was the ice cream/desert/cafe we went into after dinner. All 10 of us ordered different varieties of desert or ice cream and we all waited about 10 minutes per ice cream cone (which is a long wait when you're thinking about getting your beauty sleep for tomorrow's ride), except for Robin's 1 scoop huckleberry ice cream in a waffle cone, which seemed to be special in that it took about 40 minutes to arrive, in which time, the waitress had served the table next to us 3 1 scoop huckleberry ice cream's in a waffle cone. Much to the group's amusement and Robin's distress!
Two nights ago we camped in the grounds of a motel and RV park in a town called Cambridge. This was fine, despite the huge RV next to us whom had a little yappy dog that decided to bark until all hours and poop all over the lawn we were camping on - when we arrived there were sticks poking out of the ground about every 2 metre square where the early arrivers of the group had scouted out dog poop! After about 20 minutes of Robin and I 'debating' where the tent should go (we always spend this long 'debating' as we have different criteria; I like it flat as I cannot sleep whilst rolling down hill and Robin likes the ground soft so it doesn't bend the pegs. We both agree on the fact that it should be in the shade which helps but trying to find all criteria on a ground full of dog poop is quite trying! We finally get it up just in time for dinner (luckily we were not cooking!). The highlight of this town was the ice cream/desert/cafe we went into after dinner. All 10 of us ordered different varieties of desert or ice cream and we all waited about 10 minutes per ice cream cone (which is a long wait when you're thinking about getting your beauty sleep for tomorrow's ride), except for Robin's 1 scoop huckleberry ice cream in a waffle cone, which seemed to be special in that it took about 40 minutes to arrive, in which time, the waitress had served the table next to us 3 1 scoop huckleberry ice cream's in a waffle cone. Much to the group's amusement and Robin's distress!
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