Stop and Smell the Roses

After the rough start on the first day, Paul and Ben decided I should take it easy the next day and spend some time with my cousins. Taking their advise, I biked to Portland with them, nice bike lanes, and fun bridge crossing to a multi-use path along the river. I started to have knee pain (from the previous falls?) so after 50 miles in Milwaukee, Wayne and Mom picked me up to spend the afternoon with Michelle. They have a beautiful home with a mini farm in the back yard with horses, goats, ducks, chickens and the guard animals, llamas. After diner we decided to see the city of Portland (I wanted to see some green boxes for the bikes that I saw on TV and Ben knew of Voodoo Donuts from the Travel Channel) The donuts were HUGE, but we did bike all day and the city was bigger than I imagined. The rose gardens were spectacular, which inspired the new way I am now viewing this trip.
The next morning, Paul set off from where he and Ben left off and I settled up and visited some more. Ben and I joined Paul after the climb around MT Hood, just outside of the Warm Spring’s Indian reservation where I finally peed in the woods! We rode through some beautiful plains with horses and snow capped mountains in the distance. Ben and I were looking for buffalo, seemed like a place they would be. We realized how the town of Rhododendron got its name , so many wild bushes along the forest. Speaking of plants, so many wild lupines, pink mullen, sweet peas. After the plains, we suddenly crossed a bridge over a huge gorge, somewhat freaky, where we stopped at a marker explaining it was an ancient Indian trading spot. We biked onto a long downhill into a canyon where we camped for the night, Beautiful spot! It felt like we were in Arizona.
The next morning Paul, Ben and I set off for a long day of biking to Mitchell, ~90 miles. We started up hill to flat land with fields of alfalfa and “strawberry fields forever”. Going through Madras we still had bike lanes in town and turned onto a road 75 miles to Mitchell. We stopped at a cowboy mounted shooting competition. So much fun to see all the cowboys (one man in a blond, curly wig) cowgirls (one as young as 7 or 8) all carrying pistols to shoot at balloons as they rode in the ring. We saw two men watching the event sitting in lawn chairs with a horse on a lead next to them, similar to a leashed dog. Very funny. We rode through Prineville, still bike lanes and onto beautiful lake scenery with pelicans that we spooked into flight. Ben called it quits and Paul and I continued onto the Ochoco National Forest, a slight uphill climb for about 40 miles. We saw deer and otters and then got caught in the rain. Not bad until we rode a steep downhill (slippery when wet!) for 12 miles. A very terrifying finish for me, white knuckles all the way. Seeing Wayne was a sight but he said the “campsite” was in a “park” with no showers and it just so happened that it was in Wheeler County. No worries, the rain washed me and I was happy to be off the wet roads. -Sabrina