It was raining when we got up and we didn't have that far to go today so we slept in, had breakfast and waited for the rain to stop. Around 10:30 we had had enough waiting so we donned our rain gear and took off. The storm was stalled just north of Walla Walla so we headed south west to get out from under it. It soon cleared and we took the rain togs off. I might point out there are hundreds of wind turbines here, and there was also a lot of wind. As we headed down the Columbia River Gorge, the wind started pounding us. We had planned to ride down Rt 14 on the Washington side, but after an hour of brutal wind, mostly head wind, we decided to get out of there.
At one point I looked in my mirror and noticed that he folding bike was gone. I pulled over and sure enough the bike was nowhere to be found. No foam pad, or bungee cords or bike. I texted Dave that I lost the bike and headed back east looking for a bike in the road. I got back to where we had just stopped for fuel awithout spotting the bike. I asked inside and nobody had seen anything (some kook on a motorcycle whose bicycle fell off!) So I headed back west slowly looking over the banks beside the road and finally found it over a bank, on a stretch where the wind was especially bad. It was scraped up and one of the pedals was broken. Other than that it seemed ok. So I doubled the bungees and we headed back west. We got a little lost and ended up taking Rt 207 south. This is an amazing road (the best roads are always found when you get lost) and we spent most of the day on it. Almost no cars and the pavement was perfect. We stopped at a little expresso shack (these 8 ft x 20 ft shacks are all over out here). We ended up chatting with a local guy who was a civil engineer and a rancher (engineering job supports his ranching habit by the sounds). Got a great snapshot of whats going on in Oregon. The temperature dropped and we had to add some layers. The last bit of road before we got to Redmond was amazing. Twisties with perfect pavement and absolutely no traffic. With a stellar view of the snow covered mountains to the west, we pulled into Redmond around 7pm, checked in, rode the bike (to make sure it still worked) and walked across the street to a restaurant (nothing special). Tomorrows weather looks perfect and we are going to Crater Lake down south. Should be a perfect day.
At one point I looked in my mirror and noticed that he folding bike was gone. I pulled over and sure enough the bike was nowhere to be found. No foam pad, or bungee cords or bike. I texted Dave that I lost the bike and headed back east looking for a bike in the road. I got back to where we had just stopped for fuel awithout spotting the bike. I asked inside and nobody had seen anything (some kook on a motorcycle whose bicycle fell off!) So I headed back west slowly looking over the banks beside the road and finally found it over a bank, on a stretch where the wind was especially bad. It was scraped up and one of the pedals was broken. Other than that it seemed ok. So I doubled the bungees and we headed back west. We got a little lost and ended up taking Rt 207 south. This is an amazing road (the best roads are always found when you get lost) and we spent most of the day on it. Almost no cars and the pavement was perfect. We stopped at a little expresso shack (these 8 ft x 20 ft shacks are all over out here). We ended up chatting with a local guy who was a civil engineer and a rancher (engineering job supports his ranching habit by the sounds). Got a great snapshot of whats going on in Oregon. The temperature dropped and we had to add some layers. The last bit of road before we got to Redmond was amazing. Twisties with perfect pavement and absolutely no traffic. With a stellar view of the snow covered mountains to the west, we pulled into Redmond around 7pm, checked in, rode the bike (to make sure it still worked) and walked across the street to a restaurant (nothing special). Tomorrows weather looks perfect and we are going to Crater Lake down south. Should be a perfect day.
No comments:
Post a Comment