Day Four - Salt Marsh to Prineville
The Oregon Outback website rates this route as 7.5 out of 10 for difficulty, and yesterday we discovered why.
Dave hurt his knee and it was swollen and red. He wrapped it with cloth bandages to give it support as he packed up to leave.
The sky was clear and beautiful this morning. Of course. And the website said that the red sauce’s sauciness depends on whether it is raining or not and whether the road is dry or soaked.
It dried overnight, evidently, and so it was a completely different ride today. Easy and smooth.
Because Dave’s knee was inflamed, he decided he would ride on the road today rather than the gravel highway (Oregon’s only gravel highway). I was a bit bummed about this (and I guess I still am), as I suspect this was the most scenic part of the ride, along the river down the Ochocos into Prineville. I didn’t really understand what the change was until it was too late and we had passed that junction.
And so instead we rode along the bluff into a brisk headwind, buffetted by RVs, trucks with trailers of quads, and semis. There was no shade and the heat was building and I was feeling a bit down.
I sat on the side of the highway and meditated to refocus myself into the present, and soon Alex caught up to me. Alex was my best friend’s son who rode the first and fourth days. In the interim, he met up with his father (who was driving my VW camper) and spent the days fishing, playing cards, or exploring the local sites.
Alex and I rode together but when we got near the junction of two busy highways to turn right to Prineville, we decided that there had to be another way. So we rode the backroads until we came to a complex, where the guards had the earpieces with the coiled wires, dark glasses, and white military-contractor clothing. I rode up to ask if we could ride the perimeter fire road and whether it would take us down to town without hitting the highway.
He spent some time assessing my smelly, disheveled self until he felt that I wasn’t really a threat. So he gave us some pointers and we were off down a fabulous singletrack into the back side of Mayberry where we met up with the rest at the motel, the shower, the bed, and the washing machine. I could finally dry out my tent and wash myself and clothes and eat something other than tuna from a foil pouch or fitness bars.
