Saturday, July 9, 2005, rode 53.2 miles and climbed 2575 ft As we said in the bit on the main page, we waited until after 9 to see if the rain would stop and it sort of stopped but not really!!
(you can see I should have stitched the above photos--but did not)
so we finally gave up about 9:30 and headed out in a light mist which continued most of the day. Great ranch country and the views were like the above
until we got into the high country desert, then over the top and into the Brownlee Valley with views of the Brownlee Reservoir. Just a note here about this Reservoir – though we were near it here we had to go way up north to get over to the other side of it and cross the dam and then we had more wonderful views of it from the East side.
The highlight of this day came at 3:00 p.m. when we saw our first shadow of the day! Then ages later we finally arrived at the top of this steep grade.
and then much later we finally we reached the summit and headed down a similar 7% grade (I used the drum brake a lot)
Down in Halfway we found this interesting Oregon Bicycle
and later had this wonderful Prime Rib dinner—seems to be our favorite time of day!
If
you can read this you will now know how it got it's name! Halfway is really
a lovely little out of the way place. There are so many really lovely places
like this in Oregon that deserve a longer visit and exploration. Biking is wonderful
all over Oregon and even though we do look forward to getting into another state
just for the feeling of progress—we have loved biking in Oregon. It is the first
state we have ever ridden across—we have done it top to bottom! And we have
done California top to bottom—and that is a long way! Tomorrow we will leave
Oregon and enter Idaho.