Day Five - Prineville to Ashwood
Each day had its personality and this one had plenty.
Evidently I had slept through the commotion during the night. When I checked in, I asked for a quiet room. The manager had originally booked us in a block together, but a room on the end canceled their reservation, so he shifted me there. It was quiet. Isolated. Perfect. Except that after I moved, that opened up a room between James and Scott that was rented by a sketchy couple who were meeting cars in the parking lot, getting in the passenger side for a moment, and then going back into their room and locking the door. Later that night there were several male guests who visited, made headboard noises, and left. James was awakened several times and he asked them to quiet down. They demurred, but didn’t. Eventually, the couple in the room next door to James got in a fight, she ended up going outside, stripping naked, and running around the parking lot yelling until the police came.
She was arrested on suspicion of prostitution and drug sales, but they released her around 3AM, and the hijinks began afresh. Needless to say, James was tired and maybe a bit grumpy in the morning.
On the other hand, I had a solid sleep on a nice bed as well as a morning shower, so I was rested and fresh. (Sorry James!) We left Prineville later than expected. It was almost Veteran’s Day, and during a stop at the local grocery, one old Vet gave me a red poppy, which is still on my bike.
We started off with a clear day, but it got a bit more crowded as we rode.
We scaled Switchback Hill, which was the highest point of our route. It started out on paved road through rolling hills. And in not too long, the road went up. And up. And up.
It wasn’t bad, however, as the air was cool, the sun mild, and the conversation easy. Only a few cars passed us. Hawks circled. Brooks ran and leaped over rocks down the side of the mountain.
The climb was steep. It was only 1600 feet or so, but at times the grade was 9.9%. I got off and walked at times because it felt good to switch it up and I wasn’t making much time spinning in my lowest gear. I didn’t actually lose any time, either, as my legs appreciated the different muscles working, and so when I got back on the bike I could shift up two or three gears to quickly catch up to Dave. (James was a hill-climbing maniac. He would put his head down and his legs would just turbo-charge him up the hills like nothing. So he was long out of sight.)
We re-grouped and had a break at the top of the hill, resting from the effort. We decided it was time to go when the first raindrops fell. This was going to be all downhill for the next several miles, so I put on my rain jacket and leaned in and flew down the hill. The tires gripped without any slippage and I had a great time. I felt that I earned that downhill and I took it as fast as I could. It was so fun! But dang it was raining hard all the way down.
I waited at the bottom for everyone to catch up and then we started the ride on the flats as the rain stopped. We were skirting a ranch for 25 miles or so. During one of the breaks, a truck with a couple of ranch hands stopped and talked with us. They warned us about the creek crossings (swollen) and the clay that we’d have to deal with. (“It’ll rip the derailleurs right off the bike.”)
True to form, we had to wade through the crossings where others simply rode through and we stopped frequently to scrape clay from our tires, derailleurs, our shoes, and pretty much anything else that came in contact with the ground. I had thought that there were two crossings, but there ended up being four. I washed off my rear gear cluster on the fourth, attempting to remove what clay I could dissolve in the creek. I had lost the ability to shift, but now all worked but the highest gear.
Finally, the road started rising and dried out, so we made as good of time as expected at the end of a tough day.
We were staying at Jon McDonald’s ranch. When I saw it around a corner I was very happy.
He let us wash off our bikes. We paid $10/night each for our tent site in his apple orchard and we were happy to pay that. This part of the ride was all ranches rather than national forest, and so there wasn’t the possibility of sleeping in a dispersed site. He asked us if we were hungry and said he’d be happy to cook us a hamburger. The meat was from his ranch and was tasty, even between two pieces of white bread. Dave is a vegetarian and Jon fixed him up a big salad.
Jon also set up a big fire pit with a large round of wood and a stack of cut wood and we ate and sat by the fire and drank the last of our wine and whiskey and slept soundly.
