TransAm Day #55 Oxbow, OR - Baker City, OR
TransAm Day #55
July 21, 2018
Oxbow, OR - Baker City, OR
72 Miles
Ride Time 6:48 Hours
Tour Total Miles 3924
I made it through the night without any earthquakes or flash floods below the dam at Idaho Power Company Copperfield Park. That said, this morning about 6am, an old familiar nightmare reoccurred. I heard sprinklers, which now produces a terrifying jolt (I haven’t slept in a hammock since Kremmling). But wait! I was in a designated paid campground. How could this be? There were definitely sprinklers going off near my tent. Wtf?
I always learn from my mistakes and I adapt quickly. Now when I go to bed at night, absolutely all of my panniers are battened shut no matter where I am. Sprinklers were indeed spraying all over the place. My gear was secure. My saddle cover was in place. I was golden. That said, Scott and Eileen were soaked.
We had made a great pasta dinner last night, cooked in Modelo Chelada with grilled sausage. I had showered and laundered my dirty riding wear. It was hot in my tent when I had gone to bed, but it got cold in the middle of the night. It was frigid this morning and my riding gloves were soaked from the sprinklers. I was lucky. Scott and Eileen had it much worse. I donned my sweater, rain jacket, and leg warmers for the bracing morning chill. I stopped for roadside plums and yellow cherries.
Two miles down the road, I was psyched that Scotty’s Hells Canyon Outdoor Supply was open. I needed to update my blog and social media. In addition to WiFi, they had coffee, muffins, and orange juice. The proprietor, Diana, was a character. She complained about all the rude cyclists. She literally built her business from the ground up. It used to have a dirt floor, and now it’s really nice. All the fisherman, rafters, and motorcyclists are friendly and polite. Unfortunately she’s had many ugly encounters with rude cyclists demanding water, ice, Wi-Fi, and restrooms. They’ve scratched up her front porch with their bikes. One cyclist refused to move for an older woman trying to get through the front door. Come on cyclists! Diana is installing a camera and she’s planning to post videos of rude cyclists on her webpage. She gets it. It can be brutally hot here in the afternoon and cyclists get grumpy. She’s had her business here for thirty years. She lets cyclists camp on her lot. She bends over backwards to please her customers. Diana insists that her employees wear latex gloves whenever they fill cyclist’s water bottles. Cyclists touch their penises and poop in the woods. They don’t wash their hands, which could pass hepatitis B.
Yesterday afternoon, the man fishing with his daughter told me that he drove a beer truck for a living, and he served this area. He warned me about Diana. If any of my readers are ever passing through Oxbow, I hope they’ll stop by and say hi. I got a kick out of her.
Steve arrived in Astoria yesterday and was congratulated by Steve G and myself. However, I didn’t see any Pacific Ocean tire dip pictures on social media or his blog. He might be disqualified, and it’s possible he’ll have to redo his entire trip to make it official.
I climbed two passes today for a total cumulative ascent of 5945’. Ugh. In Richland I picked up the Powder River, which was much smaller than I had imagined. At the pass there were snow fences to either side of the road. I hadn’t seen snow fences since Wyoming.
I had breakfast at the Shorthorn Restaurant in Richland. I had an egg sandwich, biscuits and gravy, two orange juices and a coffee. Leaving Richland and heading up the Powder River I noticed how tightly controlled the water resources were. Irrigation in the valley and grass for the cattle is the objective. There were aqueducts running across the highway and bubbly canals alongside the road. It’s a desert and the water is tightly regulated. The valleys are surrounded by barren scrubby hills.
I followed the tiny Powder River up a narrow canyon with small rock outcroppings and dried out scrub. Mule deer have left horizontal meandering cuts into the steep hills like topographical profiles. Unlike the other twisting rivers I’ve been following, the Powder River is leading me west. It has the least dynamic appearance of any western river I’ve encountered. I passed Hole in the Wall Slide, where in 1984 an enormous land slide buried Highway 86 and damned up the Powder River. The event isolated local residents until a new highway could be built.
I drank two liters of hot water today because I didn’t have a choice. It was hot, and the windy conditions were brutal. In fact, I hit the wall this afternoon. I’d been riding through miles and miles of emptiness. There’s nothing interesting, and it goes on forever. I was hot, thirsty, irritable, and my feet were killing me. I stopped on the side of the road for a break, and took my shoes off. I just wanted to get to Baker City.
I’m now on my second bottle of sunscreen, which I purchased yesterday in Hells Canyon. I haven’t used chamois butter in a long time. I had a headwind all the way to Baker City. I even had to pedal down the large hill into town. I screamed, ‘This is ridiculous!’. What a crappy afternoon. I passed information signs about the Oregon Trail and the gold rush. I was so tired that I just wanted to get to town.
I camped in Warm Showers host Gayle’s back yard. Along with Scott, Eileen, and myself there were fellow westbound cyclists Walker, Lauren, Allie, and her dog da Vinci. Gayle’s dog Ruby loves to play fetch, and I enjoyed playing with her.
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