Day 6

We made it to Baker City, Oregon. We're stopping for today after biking 40 miles with headwinds. I think Catie talked about this is her post.

This trip is harder than I had envisioned, but a lot more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. I feel like I've never seen Oregon, until this past week. Huge expanses of mountains and fields that go on and on and deserts that I didn't even know existed.

In my previous posts I know there are a lot of misspellings. please disregard. My mental capacity for anything other than food, water, or sleep is minimal, so the rest of my posts are likely to be riddled with grammatical errors.

Catie and I slept in a wilderness area last night in one of the national forests. deer going through our campsite. The sound of beavers lurking in the stream nearby. We had heard that bears are a possibility in these parts, so, in the interest of safety and the fact that we were 40 miles from civilization other than hwy 7, we put up a bear bag.

We passed through a ghost town today. It's not even on any map. Kind of cool. Just a bunch of old shacks in an open field. Apparently one person lives there according to a local couple in Austin Junction ( which is nothing more than a saloon and country store).

Met a few other cyclists travelling west, a kid from Richmond, VA and an older gentleman from ....Corvallis, I believe.

Saw something a little sad today. There was a deer on the side of the road that seemed a little skittish, like it was trying to cross the road. We look across the road and there was her baby after getting hit by a vehicle and being eaten by vultures. kind of crazy how we're all out of touch with the "natural" world and how cruel and unrelenting it can seem sometimes in our world of consumer convenience.

Other than that things are going great. The days seem to get easier. my knee still doesn't hurt anymore but both of my achilles tendons are sore.

Why do we go through all this self deprivation of showering and other everyday conveniences? Maybe so we can enjoy them a little more at the end of the day.

More to come soon. Hopefully we can post more photos soon.

Cheers,

Dave