130 miles.. Longest Day Yet!

Date: 6/11/06
Mileage: 130 :)

(AndyK and PhillyK artsey pic)

Dennis and Kim's house and hospitality was amazing! We left there with full somaches and tons of energy. After doing only 60 miles the day before we were ready for the long day we had ahead of us.

(Saying goodbye to Kim and Dennis!!)

We went up Ochoco Pass (3,720 ft high) and Keys Pass (4,357 ft high) both of which were super beautiful and not too hard. Although they were high and were at least 4 - 6 miles of climbing each, the grade of the climb was not too high so we were able to keep our pace above 11 mph. On the Ochoco Pass we never went below 13 mph :).

(6% grade for 5 miles hurts! )

(First pass of the day)

(Second pass of the day, much harder than the first)

After the passes we had lunch in Dayville. We met a fellow biker there! His name is Jonah and he is biking solo with all of his gear across the country. We talked to him for awhile and he biked with us for the next 20 or so miles. He was able to keep us with us, even with all of his gear, and we were going around 21 mph! He is definately tough! He stopped in Mt. Vernon and we continued on.

(Riding with our new friend Jonah)

We were not sure where we were going to stay for the night. If we stayed in John Day, Oregon it would have been about 110 miles but we felt great and we knew that we had three passes to climb the next day so we continued on until the next town which was Praire City, Oregon. There we had planned on camping but since it was raining and we didn't want to get wet :) We decided to stay in a motel instead! It was a great motel called Sag's Motel which was about 2 miles past Praire City. The owner of the motel Mr. Sagmeister, was extremely nice and we had a great nights sleep.

-Pattt