I woke up and took the following picture from our bedroom window.
We stayed on an Indian Reservation in a now defunct casino. It's a $4 million dollar facility that use to also house a casino. But the closest town has to be at least 50 miles away. I can attest to this fact as we rode at least that distance to get there. I could count on one hand the number of cars that passed me.
This place is like Foxwood without people.
It seems that the Indian Tribe that owns it figured out they needed to be closer to people if they wanted to attract gamblers to their facility. So they moved the Casino onto a busy highway at the end of their reservation - but left a beautiful hotel in the middle of nowhere. A perfect place for us.
I found out later that we would end up having to climb this ridge to start our day. Getting good at these hills. Once we got to the top we got our first glance at Mount Jefferson. One of the staff took the following photo (that is not a smile but a grimace cause my butt is soar)
Before I go on about the ride let me start to tell you about some of the other riders. There is Craig from Portsmouth. Craig likes to sing show tunes as he rides (slightly better voice than mine). We are on the bike path in Portland and he tells me his son wants to major in Theater Management and can't for the life of him figure out where he gets this from. I say "duh Craig your singing show tunes in the middle of Oregon and you don't know why your son wants to get into the theater? The Apple does not fall far from the tree!
In any case, out of the valley we passed some unbelievable cliffs.
These went for at least a mile. The road led away from these (thank god) but we did not escape a big climb.
I am glad I stopped to take this picture because just as I was taking it a big truck went roaring by with one of those wide loads. It was carrying a huge caterpillar tractor of some sort and it completely wiped out the "bike lane". This picture gives you a sense of how narrow a shoulder we are travelling on.
Got to the top and the clouds all dissipated and we got a full shot of Mount Jefferson.
Mount Jefferson would stay on our right for at least 30 miles. I took a bunch of pictures from all different directions. One shows the mountain in the distance with a wheat field in the forefront.
But by far the following is my best picture of the trip. It gives you a sense of why we are doing this.
Those of some of the riders ahead of me. We rode like this for at least 2-3 miles. A picture does tell a thousand words.
So the next two days are supposed to be hell. Check out the following elevation graph for tomorrow's ride.
Hopefully I can blog tomorrow night - as long as the tube in my arm they are shooting morphine and re-hydration liquid in me doesn't get in the way of my typing.
It is 6:30pm here and we are heading to bed. We are on our bikes at 5:45 tomorrow morning - and for us slow riders - we will be in the saddle for at least 10-11 hours.
Night all
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