Monday, June 4, 2012

A Recap and A Century

Sorry that we haven't updated the blog recently, we have been without wifi for the past few days so I apologize for those of you who look forward to reading about our adventures. So I will recap the few days that we missed and give an expansion on the day we had today. So essentially the day after our last blog post we rode the rest of the scenic gorge route. We rode up to Rowena Crest and back down a windy road for a 75 mile day, I believe. Apparently car commercials are filmed on the road descending from Rowena Crest, an interesting fact that speaks to its beauty. We then proceeded the next day to ride from Maryhill State Park to McNary, Oregon. It was a 90 mile day that took a short amount of time. That same day we met a guy named Niel who is also riding cross country, and we hope to ride with him for much longer than that day. The next day we proceeded from McNary to Walla Walla, which was only 45 miles. We originally intended to ride past Walla Walla but disaster struck when Ty's back derailleur broke completely free from his bike, which I have never seen before. We would've been camping out in the woods had it not been for a very nice guy named Tony, who offered to let us stay in his barn for the night. We took up his offer and we stayed the night in his barn. Because none of the bike shops had the proper derailleur for Ty's bike, we had to stay the day in Walla Walla - possibly putting in danger the time we were supposed to make it to Missoula to have our party. No worries, we will make it on time; we just have to ride a little further each day. Our rest day in Walla Walla was refreshing to say the least. Walla Walla is a nice college town with many shops that we went to and explored. That morning we went to a delicious breakfast diner called Clairettes where we ordered the most food I've had the entire bike trip. After that fantastic breakfast, we visited the local farmers marked where we bought some fresh and juicy strawberries. We rented a few movies for the night and watched them until we fell asleep. The next day it was back to the grind. Mac and I packed up early in the morning intending to ride without Ty due to his broken bike. Mac and I proceeded out of Walla Walla to brutal climbs the entire day until the last 20 miles of blissful downhill. On top of that it rained the last 40 miles with a hard downpour, with continued storm warnings here throughout the night. We did however, receive some good news that day. Ty bought an entirely new bike due to the frustrating and non-fixable nature of the old bike. The owner of the bike shop who attempted to fix his old bike gave Ty a 10% discount on his new bike - a fantastic deal. We soon met Ty on the road after about 60 miles of riding when Tony, the guy we stayed with in Walla Walla, gave him a ride out to our location. After all of the misfortune and bad luck the past few days has brought us with the rain, the bike, and the tough ride, our total distance for the day came out to be 100 miles - our first and possibly only century of our entire trip. Hopefully after all of our misfortune some good luck will finally come our way.

1 comment:

  1. Misfortune? No such thing my friend. It is called experiences on the road and that makes you hardier cyclo-tourists when you can adapt to changing conditions. It is pretty amazing the number of road angels you meet along the way. Also no such thing as luck. :)

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