Sunday June 14
Our Saturday night at Dennis and Kims was another positive thing that will help balance out negatives. We made ourselves comfortable and relaxed with a couple bottles of beer. I worked on my blog while Lewis and Donna worked on their journals. A couple hours and a couple beers later, Dennis and Kim showed up. We bonded a little bit and then hit the hay. We set up our sleeping pallets in Kims yoga studio above their garage. Lewis had a blast up there as the room was one big space approximately 30 by 30 feet. And Lewis lucked out because they had an extra twin mattress that they threw up there for someone to use. Wouldn’t you know it, Lewis picks this night to not want to sleep next to his mother. When we stayed in the canvas house of Jim and Patty he had a fit because he couldn’t sleep on the bed with his mother. I gave him the opportunity at Dennis and Kims and he rejected it soundly. Huh!

In the morning Dennis fixed a hearty lumberjack breakfast of eggs (from their chickens), bacon (not from their pig) and fried potatoes and onions(probably from their garden). Donna and Lewis also enjoyed some more of the ice cream we bought the night before. This was of course topped with some of the fresh strawberries that I think Kim grew. Kim is the primary worker on a tract of land that they cultivate to produce vegetables for consumption as well as for sale at the farmers market. We pedaled away from our first ever experience as a guest of a warm showers host. Thanks Dennis and Kim for doing what you do and for being there for us when things haven’t been going all that well. But now that I mention it, things actually have taken a major pendulum shift and we have been pretty fortunate (other than the hellish climb and descent in the rain of Santiam Pass).
We pedaled away at just a bit after 10:00. Todays goal was an easy 50 miles to get to the town of Mitchell Oregon. It was a day of modest climbing to get over Ochoco pass (about 2000’ total elevation gain). This was followed by a screaming descent into Mitchell where we managed to beat out the rain by all of 5 minutes. The rain didn’t amount to much but we beat it nonetheless. Had a covered picnic area to hang out at until we set our tent up in the free city park. Quite pleasant all in all.
Camping next to us was Chris. Photo? He was on a motorcycle and was on his way to lake Tahoe. He is from Seattle and is recently retired from Boeing. Don’t know what he did there but whatever it was, he did it for 32 years. An interesting sidenote on Chris is that his Grandfather was responsible for the founding of Simpson Timber Company, and his mother was born in Shelton! Small world.

We made coffee before packing the bike for todays adventure, Monday June 15.
About the coffee. After losing all of our personals we’ve had to do a bit of modifying. Previously we had a small container of dish soap and another small container of shampoo. These disappeared. When I went to replace them at Rite Aid, I couldn’t find small containers, just big ones. We don’t want big containers of both so I only bought the shampoo with the intent of using it to wash dishes too. So I washed a few dishes last night with the shampoo using cold water at the city park. This morning our coffee had a distinct taste of mountain mist that left us just a little less than perked up. Perhaps I should have bought a dish soap to use as shampoo? Who cares if your hair smells like Dawn for Dishes! (Donna does)
We had a great breakfast in a small café before leaving town. Today we rode almost 7 miles up hill to leave Mitchell before spending the rest of the day descending or just flat riding. We intentionally chose our destination for today to be Dayville, Oregon. Just before reaching Dayville we took a detour to visit the John Day Fossil beds. This was worth the extra 4 miles as we got to learn a lot of neat stuff about fossils in Oregon. And this is quality ‘stop and smell the roses time’ not ‘hurry hurry hurry time’.
We rode 43 miles total on a gorgeous summer day in Oregon, finally! And the forecast is for more of the same. We’re spending the night at a Presbyterian Church in Dayville that takes in cyclists. We arrived in town just before 5:00 and had the church to ourselves. We will actually be sleeping on the floor of the Church in our sleeping bags. There is a full kitchen, laundry facilities, 2 bathrooms (one with a shower) and internet (dial-up). Since we arrived here, 2 other couples have shown up. The first couple were women going to Portland and the second couple was a couple also going to Portland before heading to SanFrancisco. This place is hopping with activity. We had a frozen pizza for dinner (but no beer as that is a no-no in this church!). Tomorrow we have a long day planned and don’t expect to have internet again until Wednesday. By Thursday we might be leaving Oregon behind. We’ll have to see how everything goes. And now for the first time since starting this adventure, I am totally caught up! Good bye for now and Good Night!