EnRouteTransport

I departed Riverside Lodge in a rush. I hadn’t planned on taking a break from my morning writing to do the puzzle, and then I wound up writing at length. Oh well. Regardless of how much time I spend writing in the morning, as soon as I finish, I get an adrenaline surge like I’m late for my first day of work.

The road from Silverthorne to Breckenridge follows a bike path the entire way. I looked forward to checking out the facilities. I don’t mind pedaling out on the road with cars and trucks, but given the option for a dedicated bike path, I usually prefer the casual pace and special treatment afforded by a special lane.

When I stopped at the visitor center to get directions through the parking lot maze along Rainbow Drive, I picked up a number of visitor resources…everything that had cycling (a whole magazine), most materials devoted to trains, and the one heritage tour handout I could find. Cycling stands out in the summertime materials.

Immediately I recognized how welcome the path made me feel.
“This is for me!” Of course they knew I would be coming through at some point and built the path just so I could use it. I don’t mind indulging my “Bicycle Queen” persona on occasion and for limited duration. Even the signs I wanted to see elsewhere along the roadway stood solidly in the ground for me. “Bike on a triangle. Yep, it’s gonna be steep.” I switchbacked up the slope, looked in the windows of the new development at the top of the hill. Some of the units still had construction activity inside. “Looks like those bedrooms sit about 15 feet off the path. There’s some air space, but that’s close. I wonder if at such proximity to the path property values still increase?” No one answered my question. Later when I rode through Breckenridge, a woman was shaking out a comforter or something from a second floor balcony at about 1 p.m. As far as I could tell, she wore only a black bra and black panties. “Well I’ll be. I guess it doesn’t matter to the folks out here if they have bedroom privacy.” This is probably a rather erroneous assumption based on an isolated incident. Still, don’t we formulate a sense of place based on our observations and experiences of it?

Through the tunnel and at the top of the path, I turned left, past the marina. “Wow, lots of people use bikes here.” ‘If you build it, they will come,’ repeated in my thoughts. “I wonder how they justified that, if they had evidence people would use the path or if they just built it and then people came to use it?” Everyone used the path: spandex clad racers, stylishly dressed women, visitors from afar, all body types, all fitness levels, people pushing their bikes, children, kids in trailers, tots on trail-a-bikes, seniors, youth, all ages between…everyone. I passed through a construction zone in a residential section and then followed the sign.
“Wait, Dillon & Keystone? That’s not where I want to go.” I stopped and turned around back up the little hill. A police car sat at the parking area right where the path diverged from the road. On my maps, a note mentions that the police are the most helpful to cyclists.
“Excuse me. I hate to distract you.” The officer had the speed radar gun poised on the steering wheel.
“No problem.” He put the gun down. “How can I help you?”
“I want to get to Breckenridge. Does the road go there?”
“No, the road goes to Keystone. Breckenridge is the other way.”
“Can you help me figure out where I am on this map?”
“You’re here.”
“Oh. Whoops. I must have gone the wrong way.”
“There’s a way to connect to the path again over the road, but it’s narrow with a guard rail. The path is nicer.”
“It’s not a big deal, I’ll just go back the way I came. Thank you!”

“I started late, and then I went the wrong way. Zooming out of here. It must be the altitude. Yeah, well, I wanted to check out the cycling facilities. I’m researching.” I passed where I made the wrong turn and looked for a directional sign. “I can see how I missed that. It’s parallel to the direction I was traveling. Helpful for folks already up there on the flat part. Not so useful for those of us about to pass out from lack of oxygen and the steep climb to get up here. Whatever.”

The path skirted the dam and then the highway, two lanes of bike traffic on one side of the roadway. Some speedy cyclists came down the road. “And they use the road too. Nice.” The path cut away from the road and wound through the trees and recreational areas around the lake. Up, down, curvy around…fun! On a little hill, I saw another of my species, and we both stopped to chat.
“There are lots of people on bike here, but you’re the first person I’ve seen out touring so far.” We’re a rare breed apparently, so the path couldn’t have been made just for us, but I’m going to think that anyway.
“I came over the pass this morning. It was cold and drizzly. I put my rain jacket on to come down. Breckenridge has great food. I had greens. Like, for real fresh spinach. And a latte.”

He wore an Oregon cycling jersey.
“Greens! No way? I didn’t think they had them anywhere else outside of Oregon.”
“For real, and not like they make them in the south, creamed. That’s not spinach. Oh, in the south, if you don’t want gravy on your food, you have to say so. And you can’t just say ‘no gravy’ because then only one thing will come out without it but the rest of your food will be drowning in it. You have to say “no gravy on ANYTHING.”
“No gravy on ANYTHING. I’m practicing. Thanks, that’s a great tip.”
“The Ozarks aren’t so bad. The worst hill is always the one you didn’t have enough to eat or drink on. Could be a piddly little thing, the worst. Most people know Hoosier is a tough climb so they eat a lot and drink a lot and it’s not so bad.” I took the opportunity during this conversation to eat an energy bar. I ate breakfast hours before and my late start had me feeling rather peckish…or was it the altitude? “I came up from Fairplay this morning. The altitude is tough.”
A humming bird buzzed around his red panniers and hovered over his handlebar bag. He shooed it away with his hand, “You don’t want this candy bar. Go away.”
“I definitely noticed it last night. I’m just going to take the pass slow. I’ll get there.”
“You should be fine, you’ve been up here at altitude for several days going your direction. I was in Pueblo yesterday. That’s 5500.’ Haven’t had a chance to really adjust. Actually was thinking I might try to do the pass yesterday, but when I got to Fairplay I had to just stop. How many days have you been out?”
“Four weeks tomorrow. How about you?”
“23 days.” He left from Yorktown, VA.
“Holy smokes! You’re moving.”
“You have a pretty quick pace going too if you’re averaging about 75 a day. I rode with this one guy on the Western Express. You won’t catch him. He was doing about 180 a day. I rode with him for a couple of days. Did 140 one day 120 another.”
“Do you see anything at that rate?”
“He’s one of these endurance athletes. He did say he didn’t stop to take any pictures. I rode with a couple of women racers for a little bit. They were so in tune with one another. They shifted at the same time like they were riding a tandem. I tried to get in front of them a couple of times, but I kept messing them up so I rode in back. My son the tourer told me, ‘It’s ok to ride with people. It’s more fun. If they don’t ride as fast as you, that’s ok. Ride with them a little while and then move on.’”
“You sound like you’ve already been through Wyoming and all that?”
“Yeah. I rode this half of the TransAm before, last year from Fairplay. In fact, today I keep asking myself what I’m doing. I have places to be. What are you out here doing?”
“I’m studying bicycle tourism and rural economic development.”
“You tell those people: Buy something. In the small towns, they keep these little stores open just so people will get something. These kids come out of the stores and say, ‘All they had was Coke.’ I say, ‘Well, did you buy one? Even if all you do is give it to a kid outside. Leave a couple of dollars or something if there’s nothing you want to buy.’ Well, I should let you get to the pass. It’s nice chatting. It’s been a while since I talked to someone.”

I enjoyed riding the path into Breckenridge, but John was the only tourer I saw that day. Lots of people rode the path for exercise, and many more recreated on it. An older woman passed me slowly, “I like your jersey.”
“Thanks!”

“You hardly see any with a road — it’s all mountain out here.”
“I’m all about the road although I like this path.”
She continued on ahead, just a notch faster than me. An older man rode up and chatted with me for a while. He’d been on some long-distance tours.
“Do you ride your bike everyday?” I’m a firm believer in cycling keeping you young.
“Yep. Pretty much. I live in Breckenridge.”
“You ride even in the winter?”
“Yeah. I have a place down in Denver though. In the winter I ride there.”
He peeled off, and I slowly worked my way through Breckenridge. I stopped at the Heritage Tour center for water. There were plenty of signs directing people to the bathrooms and no drinks in the building…. I let myself be herded, which meant I didn’t even go into the center. I guess people who want to use the bathroom don’t care all that much about heritage tours. Erroneous assumption #2 for the day.

When I returned to my bike, a man from the heritage center came out. He wanted to know where I came from and where I was headed, “You’re going really light.”
“Where are you from?” I figured if he was a local he was a recent transplant because he had a southern accent.
“I’ve been here 35 years, work on the mountain and get to go skiing 7 days a week. My wife too. I’m from Arkansas.” He made it sound like they return to Arkansas for a time each year, but if he spent the winters in Breckenridge and it was the middle of summer and he was working the heritage tours, I couldn’t quite figure out how he maintained his accent.
I made one last stop in Breckenridge. I needed to break a $100 bill. I planned to stay in Guffey that night, and it’s always good to have small bills for small towns. It’s much easier to buy a juice, candy bar, or post card with a couple of dollars in hand than a big bill. I noticed one day when I ran out of small change I would have bought some post cards, but I wasn’t going to ask the tiny gas station to break a bill for $1. They may not have anyway. I felt badly though because I would have spent money there but didn’t. I did just what John had cautioned against, but it wasn’t for lack of willingness to purchase, just poor planning on my part. (I tried to break the bill at a small town grocery store thinking that my $25 purchase would be enough to make reasonable change at the register, but it wasn’t.) I didn’t want to repeat that, and I figured anywhere in Breckenridge could break $100. I bought some fuel for the climb ahead and happily pocketed my change.

I was the only cyclist out there. The road began with a moderate grade, and I pedaled steadily the whole way. The summit lay 10 miles from Breckenridge. Ahead, I saw a green sign.
“Oh, how nice of them to let me know I still have four more miles to go. They usually never post things like that. Keep going. Four more miles. If it’s like this, that’ll be ok. All the same, I used my encounter with the sign as an opportunity to stop, catch my breath, and drink some water.” It’s good to hydrate extra at altitude.
Not far ahead, the grade changed. The switchbacks can be incredibly difficult to deal with, especially when the sharp point of the turn comes on my side of the road. At the outside of the turn, the steepness moderates with distance. On the inside of the turn, it’s just steep. With all the traffic on this road, I couldn’t follow the shallow line (through the middle of the road), I had to go straight for it. The first major switchback had me on an inside turn. I stopped to catch my breath before taking it on. Then I went for it, pedaling fast in a low gear and then standing to get up the dramatic incline. I rested in motion as I rounded the outside turn and looked up to see some trucks stopped on the side of the road. I welcomed the excuse to stop again to wait for them to get back on the road, then followed close behind until they gathered speed. I could maintain a slow pace, but I couldn’t gather speed.

Clouds built up overhead. I recalled John’s comments, “It rained on me at the summit and was cold.” I continued snaking my way up the pass, stopping occasionally to take a breather. I could see less and less of the landscape above and ahead and knew I must have gone nearly four miles. I stopped one more time to take a picture of Quandary Peak to my right, 14,200’+. “I don’t think I ever climbed that one. It has a pretty steep drop off on three sides it looks like, but a nice ridge ramp to get to the summit.” I passed the peak trailhead. “One more set of switchbacks.” I pedaled, resting on the uphill. That reminded me of one of the books I read preparing for this trip, Bike for Life, Ride to 100. There’s an excerpt from a long-time cyclist and past Olympic rider. He talked about resting on the uphills. I hadn’t thought about that comment in all these months until now, when I experienced it. It is actually possible to pedal uphill and rest at the same time.

I saw the pass! I pedaled slowly to the top, breathing hard. A small car passed me as I neared the top. A man got out with a camera and came over to the sign right as I got there. He took a picture of the summit sign and said, “You made it! Do you want me to take your picture?”
“Yes please. Thank you for being here and being part of my celebration of getting to the top. I need to catch my breath.”
“Good job!”
We chatted a bit after the requisite photo op. His name is Jan, and he does triathlons.
“Awesome! I’m not much of a swimmer.”

I stayed at the top of the pass for a little while, enjoying my accomplishment. Over 11,000’! “This sure is a different way to climb mountains.” The clouds continued dark and close over the summit. It rained a little bit on my way up, but I didn’t care. It felt sorta good but then seemed to go away immediately.

I reached the summit at 3:15 p.m.
“Guffey is another 50 miles. Are you sure you’re going to make it?”
“Not really, no. I could stop at Fairplay. It’s just down the hill from here.”

I put on my windbreaker and started down the other side of the pass.
A line of cars queued for construction. I rolled down to the front of the line. A sort of broken looking man stood as the flagger.
“I broke my neck two times riding mountain bikes. Split my skull open. Don’t ever put a backpack over your handlebars.”
“Thanks for the tip. I won’t.”
“Yeah, one of these days I’m going to have to ride across the country.”
I wondered what kind of bike he rode. His body looked twisted enough that I wasn’t sure he could ride a bike but maybe a recumbent. “What kind of bike do you ride?”
“Whatever kind of bike.”
“Well, be safe doing it. There’s no need to break your neck again riding across the country.”
“Maybe.”
“No, seriously.”
“You’re out by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Adventuress! Are you single? You’re my kind of girl.”
“How long do we have to wait here?”
“Until they say it’s ok to go. But when it’s ok, you can ride down there first. When you get past the rollers, you can ride on the new pavement. You won’t have to share it with cars.”
I rode the blissfully smooth pavement down into Alma, “Highest Incorporated City in the lower 48.” Hmmm, Alma.

From Alma, another bike path led into Fairplay. I rode the path for a little while, but the dips in the surface gave me flashbacks to the Wyoming roadways. While not much room on the highway existed for bikes, I rode the road. It proved smoother. “I guess if you’re going to build a bikeway like that, you also need to factor in some maintenance. They do no good if they’re rotten to ride on.”

I decided to stop in Fairplay. I rode through the town not really sure where I wanted to go. I ended up looking in on the Fairplay Hotel. While it seemed deserted, the signs on the door assured me it was open. It didn’t help that the sky had a dark cast to it, coming rain. I looked in the windows, and the lobby called me in. At the desk, a walkie talkie with a note put me in contact with the innkeeper. As she descended the stairs she said, “We have a special rate for cyclists.”
“Excellent.”
I checked in, changed my clothes, and hunted for dinner. If I took a shower first, I would be on a fast track to passing out. Fairplay sits at relatively high altitude, 9953’. I hadn’t gotten over the lethargy part of acclimatizing yet. Or maybe it was the big climb at altitude. I could feel sleep at the edges of everything…me, the town, the hotel, the mountain, the road….

Dinner came from an Italian place that boasted happy hour from 4-6. I was the only one in the restaurant for some time and decided to catch up on my postcard writing. Eventually the restaurant filled up. Just as I was about to leave, a woman sitting next to me asked, “What are you writing?”
“Postcards.” I handed the stack of them to her to look at, but she didn’t take them.
“The only reason I’m talking to you is because we’re not getting along,” she motioned to the others with her at the table.
I looked at the people she was with. They must have been enjoying a family vacation…a little kid, a mom and dad, and she grandma.
“We’ve been together a week.”
“And it’s going well, I can see.”
“If you need a place to stay, they have a lovely home.” Both of the couple rolled their eyes.
“Nice. I’m headed east. Where do you live?”
“Lynchburg, VA.”
“I have no idea where that is, but my route takes me through Virginia.”
“We were in Alma earlier. They have a celebration going on, and the locals were smoking marahoosie.”
“Alma does advertise that it’s the highest town in the lower 48. I imagine many people are there so they can be high all the time.”
“What you’re doing is incredible. Can I pray for you?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you a yogi?”
I gave her my contact information, accepted her prayers for me along the way and all of the family’s good wishes, and walked out into the wind and rain, across the block and into the hotel.

When you live on your bike and have nowhere to go except where you go, you might hang out on a picnic table adjacent to a Rail Trail in the early afternoon debating the merits of riding on gravel or the roadway. While engaged thus on a cross-country bicycle route, another cyclist might pass by…and maybe stop.

Clearly, Mike has his life neatly packed on his bicycle.
My icebreaker: “How long have you been out?”
“Five years. I used to do a lot of riding in the ‘70s, ‘80s, even the 90’s. One day I thought I might leave and not come back.”

He had a dashboard for his bike fashioned from the rigid plastic of a pannier and covered in velcro. The main item on his dashboard – among several – was a palm top with GPS. A solar panel topped the sleeping bag and tent on back.

“I’m completely off the grid.”

I’d say so.

From time to time on this ride, I think of the animated movie Cars that my brother made me watch during the winter holidays when I was bubbling with the fresh excitement of having decided I would ride across the country to study historic roads. It’s not a point for point comparison, but I did feel a bit like the fancy racecar compared to his station wagon or well-used pick up. We rode together a bit, talking about Wyoming weather. Our differing speeds finally put distance between us, and we again found ourselves solo riders – gone our separate ways.

Linda and Tom Collier hosted me in Halfway on Tuesday evening. What a glorious time we had beginning with cocktail hour watching the weather move across the ridges and valleys. Halfway, while it may struggle economically like most rural towns, does have an unusual claim to fame. As the thunderstorm and rain curtain consumed the higher ridges to the east, Linda used Babette’s house on the ridge as a reference point for the storm’s movement.

You can see Babette’s house in this picture if you break out a magnifying glass.

Follow the left side peak of the barn roof in the foreground straight up and over to the left just a bit. There is a double peak interrupting the ridgeline. That’s Babette’s house. She’s an artist but was the original 1964 Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model.

The storm came rushing over us, and we scrambled inside for a bounteous salad made from just about everything grown right there. I learned from Tom that when you sell 5 dozen eggs and you want some for breakfast, you go out and give the chickens a nice squeeze. This helps them lay.

Meanwhile, they told me stories about different biking tours they’ve been on, life in Halfway, the joys of retirement, irrigation, SMART reading programs, working as a forester. Tom used to manage 100,000 acres of forest land.

“How big is that, like Connecticut?” I have no sense of scale or quantity when things get big like that.

“No. 100,000 acres isn’t big like that. It’s about six townships.”

I still have no idea. “Was it all contiguous?” I can hardly say contiguous…maybe from the influence of cocktail hour.

Linda comes in from turning the light on for the cute little pimply adolescent chicks. “You should see the light out there. The clouds are luminescent.”

Sure enough, even in the dark of evening, the clouds had an unearthly glow to them, reminding me of some Hollywood movie scene, ominous and playful.

With a great morning send off, I worked my way out and past Oxbow, marveling at the beauty of the place. Around the bend, I followed the Snake River for some time in the quietest morning I can recall. Even with many people out on boats fishing, there wasn’t a sound.

At Brownlee Dam, I crossed the Snake into Idaho (where there was no “Welcome to Idaho” sign, much to my chagrin), and an hour got sucked away. Actually, more than an hour really because it seemed to take me forever to climb the 13 miles to the pass that would swiftly and gently roll me into Cambridge. On this climb, silence gave way to “environmental white noise”: buzzing cicadas, crickets, birds, and the rushing of Brownlee Creek.

And for the night, I stop in Council. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.

Feeling inspired by a shady stop at a well-gardened library in Halfway, Oregon. “More and more cyclists come through here all the time,” says the librarian with her broom in hand, sweeping the front walk. It’s Tuesday, and the library isn’t open today. “If you have a laptop, you can find a spot to sit and connect to the wireless anywhere outside the building.”

So here I am doing that, and someone else walks around the corner, overjoyed to see someone using the new picnic table. “That’s a great spot!”
“I think so too.” The words have hardly tumbled from my fingers.
We chat a minute more, and she invites me to stay at her house. “We’re on Warm Showers.”
“Wow. I signed up but haven’t used it yet because I can’t imagine who would be on it out here.”
“Two of us actually.”
“Great. I was going to press on a little further, but I’m totally open to opportunity.”

Yesterday as I was talking to Brian and Corinne about cycling in Baker, they suggested I get an early start…maybe stay in Halfway.
“There isn’t any shade out there until you get to Halfway. It’s just sagebrush.”
I keep wanting to say there wasn’t anything between Baker and Halfway except the small town of Richland and the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. That would be a lie because the sun, sagebrush, and wide-open, ranging spaces abound. Highway 86, Hells Canyon Scenic Byway, goes through the kind of country you could easily disappear in, if you wanted to.

And that reminded me of what I wanted to say in the Butterflies post but forgot. I took this picture of me shading the dead butterfly. I haven’t taken any photos of myself yet although I’ve let other people snap some shots of me. And there’s the blog, which somehow is me. If I’m posting, then I must be alive. And if I’m telling these stories about riding my bike across the country, then I must be doing it. I remember the beginning of Ethics class back in the day at Colgate with Hunt Terrell when he introduced us to Plato’s cave of Forms. My memory on the particulars is rough, but there was this idea that people looking at the shadows of things on the wall thought they were the real things when, in fact, the shadows are merely reflections. As I was standing there on the roadway at the end of my 87-mile day and probably affected a bit from heat, sun, and exertion, I thought how the dead butterfly was such a beautiful expression. With my shadow over it, the cave of Forms came to me. Was not the body of the dead butterfly a Form like my shadow over it? And if I am a shadow, or the pieces of me captured are merely reflections of some other energy, then who or what am I? So, maybe that’s a little nutty to have a philosophical dialogue about embodiment when my current work mostly entails using my body. Let’s just say I get to spend some time reflecting on who and what I am, and working my body for such an extended period of time somehow helps me grasp me, when that’s always the hardest thing for me to do. The miles of 7% grade are one thing…that’s hard…but seeing me…that’s hardest.

Back to Hells Canyon Scenic Byway and the “nothing” out there.

I stopped at a little interpretive area, Hole in the Wall. “Ooh, what could it be? Maybe a mine – like back at the Oregon Trail Crossing? Some other geologic feature? One of those kitchy roadside things like the tree tunnels in the Redwoods?”

Hole in the Wall is a landslide. On the interpretive sign, they make some comparison with 10-yard dump trucks bumper to bumper from Baker City to New York City as a way to put some perspective on how much land slid. Maybe once I get to the east coast I’ll have a better idea of how many trucks that is, but right now it’s just as meaningless as the number of cubic tons.

All this mass of soil and rock slid right over the highway, and it’s still like that. Old highway 86 simply disappears beneath the earth. This was in 1984, and they didn’t say how long it took to build a new road around the slide. This is why I think it’s silly when humans talk about conquering nature. But I was a little uneasy about where the road had been sited after that.

Here’s something I noticed about this stretch of roadway: no roadkill. So, there are no animals? There are no cars to hit them? They get cleaned up quickly?

I saw a dead butterfly – same kind – right after I passed the crest of the pass…the part where the grass grows, things green abound, and trees live. I saw a live one too. Oh, and I saw a great blue heron in the river and a mama with her home-school squad of ducklings. They were out having swimming lessons.

Beginning of the week, Monday. That means it’s a workday, as if I haven’t been doing any. The days and weeks will quickly blur together, I can tell. Research mission: What is this place, and how do bicycles and preservation connect in this rural community to create a sustainable transportation hub?

To return to the “gateway,” let’s consider what downtown Baker City looks like. We’re just walking around. I might add that I came in on Highway 7, and this is not what first met my eye. However, there’s an eyeful to take in just in downtown. City Hall sits one block off of Main St, but it commands attention and drew me towards it. Even the backside of Main has a certain amount of appeal. Back in Baker’s heyday, it boasted being a 24-hour town, and this street housed a number of saloons and brothels. Back to Main today, I bought some postcards at Betty’s, a store chock full of books. And just down the street at the Stationer’s (a signal to me that I could spend some time in a place), I found some great treasures in the display window and spent a little money in the store on what seem to be perfect business cards for this trip, and a trip expense log. It’s sorta old school, but I think I could come up with a nice modification of the expense log for bicycle touring. It’s an idea. I usually collect a lot of stuff in my idea cauldron, let it boil and simmer for a time, wait for it to reduce to the essential idea, and then serve up the wondrousness that I find smiling in there.

As a lover of the letter and postcards and stamps, I have a certain fondness for post offices. Baker City provides an amusing counterpoint for Eugene as it relates to post offices and also put some twist on the Victorian-Modern aesthetic dichotomy that I often encounter. In Eugene, people often grumble about how there are no old buildings left downtown; yet, few people celebrate the fabulous collection of Modern architecture we have in Eugene, the result of demolishing all the “old” buildings. One of my first questions of anyone when arriving in Baker was, “Where is the post office?” The answer was, “It’s unfortunate…for the post office. In a building of the Brutalist style. The small office building next to it was the old post office.” Looks like there’s more Modern architecture about town, just not on Main. Something happened in Baker City in the late 1960s. The Geiser Grand Hotel closed then and remained derelict for nearly 30 years until reopening after an extensive renovation in the 1990s. And the new post office and federal building went up during the Nixon era. Whatever it was, the buildings didn’t suffer demolition and a new life as parking lots. Not that I can tell anyway.

I had two incredible conversations with locals about Baker City, to return to my question about bicycles and preservation. My discovery: Baker City serves as an artistic, entrepreneurial incubator! When asked what they like about Baker, first thing they mention: “It’s affordable!” In fact, if you want to buy one of the awesome buildings downtown, no problem. It might need some repair, but even that you could do for a lot less than what many houses in metro areas even sell for. And since you have no reason to spend any time in a car or waiting in line, you have lots of free time…some of which you might spend creating and organizing what you need to have happen in the community for it to serve your needs, whether that’s organizing a Turkey Trot, opening a bento restaurant, running a gallery/studio, hosting a monthly literary reading, or serving on the board of Baker Loves Bikes while managing a health food and kitchen connoisseur store.

Layers. Layers are important. Just like how to keep warm or cool in the outdoors. Currently, no bike rental exists in Baker. What a great opportunity should I (or anyone else) choose to move to Baker City (and more than one person made that pitch). That could be one aspect of a business model because no one could survive on bike rentals alone, but what else could a person layer with it? This multi-faceted approach to operating characterizes the vital synergy that keeps rural communities alive and vital. Baker City serves as a nexus for overlapping networks. It’s a hub, and not just of transportation and recreation.

In fact, the evening wound down with two things I rarely see in Eugene: lightning, and a sunset defined by a waning thunderstorm.

What do you see first when entering a town? Have you ever noticed?

After having several discussions about gateways, I now notice what greets when entering a town. I think it was Redmond that greeted me with a monstrous BPA utility station. Requires a certain aesthetic appreciation to feel welcome by that.

While Sumpter didn’t first greet me with the classic look of this sign, it intrigued me. I was after water and almost turned around three times, but I’m glad I kept going. The mining equipment museum on the side of the road had such expressive creatures there to greet.

Outside of Sumpter weathers a ghost town, Whitney. When the Stump Dodger rail line closed in 1947, Whitney — then population 150 — also closed. I don’t know how you close a town, unless it’s a company town. Probably there wasn’t much visitation at that time, and a town wouldn’t have survived. Yet, towns like Sumpter survive. How? Any of these very remote rural towns, how do they survive?

These are good questions to ask while climbing. I delight in low-traffic roads. The spot on the other side of the white line where trucks travel (because there are few cars out here) is measurably smoother than to the right of the white line. Sometimes, it’s the white line that’s the smoothest. Every bump is an additional impact on those tender sitting areas…. All the same, the roads have a certain appeal even when they are steep.

The flowers keep me going. I don’t stop often enough to capture them in film, but much of what’s great about them can’t be captured in these various media. When I was heading into Dayville, I couldn’t believe how yummy the air smelled. I guess it was white wild roses that made the air smell so sweet. In the flats, I assume it’s clover that smells so good. Sunflower types. Purple flowers. Cornflowers. Orange flowers. Indian Paintbrush. So many plants, and I don’t know their names.

Back to Sumpter.

As I cruised the museum, I found so many friendly faces and neat shapes.I talked to several people in town. I learned that Sumpter has 350 miles of snowmobile trails and over 500 miles of ATV trails and that people recreating in this way comprise most of the town’s regular, year-round visitation. I also learned that the only thing really lacking in the town and area is medical facilities and that the nearest are in Boise, ID, about 175 miles away. It’s best to plan your emergencies or major illnesses. Otherwise, there’s a place in OR along the Columbia that drop ships food into Baker City. Residents can get the equivalent of “health food” items by ordering online and driving the 26 miles into Baker City for groceries, which they do anyway.

Yesterday was more about talking to people than it was miles.

I stopped in Mount Vernon to check out the town. Moved on a couple of miles down the road to a great hiker-biker campground at Clyde State Park. I talked to a museum host on the other side of the fence from the hiker-biker camp. He wore a Route 66 shirt…instant connection. He told me that this campground is the Governor’s favorite spot, that’s why the showers are so nice. Indeed, who would have thought there would be such deluxe showers there. For cyclists, camping is $5. If all you want to do is take a shower, $2. Such a deal!

In John Day, I gave a decal to an innkeeper and had a nice prolonged chat with her. She had just hosted the 50 cyclists going across country. Found out they’re headed to NH. Some more tips from her on cyclists in small towns. She has been managing there only 4 months, but that doesn’t mean that the water system can handle 50 cyclists all wanting a hot shower at the same time. She had a similar something to say about cyclists, in that they’re “particular.” It’s not fancy and the beds are either hard or soft. They are what they are. Be cognizant of who your neighbors are. If you’re staying next to a bar, well, then you have to deal with whatever might result from that. Of course hospitality would have it all a beautiful experience for everyone…. And when in a hotel or motel, do not use bath towels on bikes…use bike rags. Most places have these.

During lunch I chatted some with Steve from Vancouver Island. He was in town for the Motorguzzi Rally. He reminded me that there are a lot of similarities between bicyclists and motorcyclists. What we need in terms of town is much the same. Thank you, Steve, for guessing “planner.” Looking forward to more chats!

Did I mention it’s gorgeous scenery? I’m still on the Journey Through Time Scenic Byway.

So, I’m thinking more about mixing modes, and if this rural community economic development piece works it’s because it makes room for lots of people and lots of activities. At least in eastern Oregon, it seems like it would kill a community to specialize just in bicycles. However, it wouldn’t help in the slightest to turn the bikes away.

I checked out Prairie City. Seemed asleep. I liked it, but it sorta lacked “permeability.” Probably if I were wiped out at that point it would have been more awake….

Then it was a seemingly long, steep, never-ending climb up the first of three passes that will take me into Baker City. On the other side of the first pass is Austin Junction where I camped for the night. Curt, a cyclists from Wichita, KS, joined me just as I was about to pass out. We were up for a while talking bike stuff and experience. Once we (cyclists) find each other, it seems like a pretty small world. Curt’s Mom was one of the original TransAmerican riders in 1976. Way to get on a bike and do it Curt!

Cold night in Austin Junction where my feet never got warm. Curt and I spent the morning writing our blog posts waiting for the cafe to open at 8. Hard to believe there’s wifi out here where there’s not a nothing else. (I guess that double negative is intentional.)

Now, yesterday as I was climbing the pass out of Prairie City, I had fantasies of OJ and a sag wagon.

I found both in Austin Junction!

Believe it or not, I am now carrying the 1955 Thunderbird sag wagon with me as an emblem of my own get up and go!

I’ve been counting some kinds of roadkill.
2 magpies
1 hummingbird
1 bunny
1 kit fox or baby coyote or something
lots of snakes
lots of birds

and lots of butterflies.

As a cyclists, you see lots of roadkill. It’s a curious way to experience the wildlife of an area. Roadkill changes with the season, and like the plant life, changes in different climates and geographical areas.

Beautiful butterflies.

Days ago when I was coming up with this post idea I had some philosophical comment to make. In the cold of this morning, that addition is frozen somewhere in my psyche.

I saw this message and immediately thought, “There’s a big piece of cake waiting for me at the top!” Yummy. That’ll sure get a person over the mountains. The bike lane had many messages along the way, particularly on the long climbs. Apparently a group that meets annually for some long rides was out. I saw them at 6 a.m. when I was rousing from my lava bed. About 50 riders…no gear, so they had it supported. Lucky them, but I was happy for the messages in the road and the thought that there might be cake at the top!

After 7 miles of blissful downhill after the first pass, I ended up in Mitchell. Stopped at the first cafe I saw and ordered a big lunch. Some bikers came outside where I was musing over my map and started talking to me. One of them, He Who Travels with His Man Wives, said he usually rides a bike and not a motorcycle and was envious and all sorts of excitement. He used to work at Burley, so fun times geeking out over carrying gear and such. He and his two buddies are the Man Wives. And good times were had by all!

I wanted to make the cafe my first decal delivery. I’m on task to deliver window decals to businesses along the TransAmerica route so cyclists know which places are bike-friendly, and so people start to get a sense that they’re traveling on a bicycle route. The cafe owner wasn’t so into it. This is ok. I’m not out to force window decals on anyone, but it did dampen my spirits a little bit that even in a town of 100 or so on the route businesses aren’t just beside themselves with cyclists coming through. Well, I probably knew this already, but for my first ask, it was a little bit of a downer. At the same time, I do think that there are things we as cyclists can do to make communities more receptive to our particular demographic…so I asked.

“Like kids, athletes are high maintenance. They have a lot of needs and not usually a high ticket item.”

Considering that got me up the next pass pretty easily…because I knew there would be cake at the top. Or maybe it was the big lunch I had at the cafe fueling me up the hill, but as a solo rider I’m sure I wasn’t a very big ticket even though I ate a lot. How does this translate to cyclists? Well, when you stop in a town, spend money. I know that’s hard to do, particularly as most of us are traveling a long time with limited expenses.

When I rolled into Dayville, my experience was almost the opposite. I found the Presbyterian Church where there is the Biker’s Hostel. For only a donation, you can shower, do laundry, cook in a fully stocked kitchen, use the internet, and sleep on the floor or camp in the yard. Lots of cyclists pass through here, and the ongoing log book has some great data on who and from where and how long plus inspiring stories of people on journeys. Recently, a man from New Zealand came through on some crisscross the US east and west, north and south of which he has already logged 10,000 miles. Another FAMILY wrote in. They’re a group of 8 with children between 11 years and 18 months! They’re headed to South Carolina. Another couple was here doing the TransAmerica route to celebrate their 40th Anniversary.

I gave a window decal to Rose, who’s the Hostel contact. I’m not sure if it will go up because this is also a functional church and not a business…but it’s a really nice place to stay. Very bike friendly. I also gave a decal to the local Mercantile. This grocery (and other stuff) has been an operational mercantile for over 110 years! I thought that was pretty cool, and I managed to find pretty much everything that would get me through the night, morning, and onto the next series of passes…plus a postcard! Mailed from Dayville. Some of you out there ought to chime in on if you want to real postcard mailed to you. At least one does not need an internet connection for that (and I’m traveling with stamps).

This will be a brief post for the morning, since I don’t want to spend good riding time on a slow internet connection.

I stopped in Prineville for the night. Unfortunately for me, there’s a rodeo happening in town, and there was no lodging available.

Found what seemed an ok place to hide out for the night, flat landscaped bed of lava rock with some shrubbery for cover. After having passed out for an hour, I awoke to the realization that sprinklers would be coming on and dousing where I nested. Hmmm…

Moved my impromptu camp to the edge of the building, thinking that there’s no need to water within the first two feet of any structure, especially where there is not plant life. When the sprinklers came on, I happily noticed that the one right beneath me was not exactly beneath me and spraying away from me. Yeah! Maybe an hour later I came to and realized that the surface of my ground cloth was flooded. Got up, shook it out, back to sleep.

Well, even though everyone irrigates the fields out here to make hay (it must be dry) somehow there was a perpetual drip coming from the eave above me all night…this making me quite wet.

I made a 90 degree rotation with my sleeping arrangement, under the wider eave.

Plan was to get up at 6 a.m. Just before six I hear people talking and woke to see scads of riders passing by. Race? Tour? They carried no gear.

Got myself collected fairly quickly…I hadn’t really unpacked…made it to a coffee shop and found out that it’s a cross country ride. It’s easier to ride when you’re not carrying gear, for sure. Not sure how I wound up with such a heavy kit, but so it goes.