Day 3

recalculating .... Last night we looked at day 3 statistics and decided it was a little ambitious.  Julie suggested an alternative - OR hwy 26, which was about 120 miles instead of 135 and the climbs weren't as steep.  We checked with the locals, Dick checked with his son Eric, our map my ride honcho, and we all agreed.  Light traffic, nice scenery, good shoulders - it met our requirements.  It turned out to be a good choice.

We spent a lot of time today riding up and down valleys.  The first segment took us up on a climb up to 4700 feet through a beautiful pine forest.  Then a nice 12 mile descent - we felt like kids.  Then another gruling climb and another big hill down.  We ended up pedeling upstream for 40 miles on the John Day River but it was a slight grade.  It was hot and we looked for a spot to dunk our heads in, but we continued on.  At the end of the day, we were in the saddle eight hours and covered 118 miles.

The highlight of the day was meeting other cross-country bikers.  We saw a half dozen going east to west, their panniers loaded to the max.  We talked to a nice young couple from Vermont and exchanged road information.  Then mid-afternoon Julie met us with huge wedges of watermelon.  A couple going our way came by and we invited them to share our water, watermelon, and gatoraid.  They were hauling a Burley, fully loaded.  They enjoyed us and our refreshments so much I thought they'd ditch the Burley in the ditch and join our tribe.

Each day we are really enjoying the beauty and variety of Oregon.  Long hard rides but it's certainly worth it.
Roe