Chilling in Baker City

Hello, dear readership! The photos continue to be an issue, which makes it tricky to pull out the highlights of what we've been doing. I will attempt to do so here.

Let's see. Well, a couple of days back we went to one of the units of the John Day Fossil Beds near Mitchell, Oregon. There are four "units" at four locations. The ranger there was so kind as to give us a driving tour of the area, because we were worried about riding our bikes on the gravel roads. So we got a personal tour of the place, which is beautiful and odd, but difficult to describe. I'll try a bit: The hills around there are tan-colored and without vegetation, and swathed with wide stripes of deep red, almost like they've been spray-painted. The landscape was formed by volcanic eruptions and the soil is clay-like and made from ash. Apparently the place is chock-full of fossils, because of the successive layers of volcanic ash that cover the place. It is EERILY silent out there. You can hear your ears ring. The ground was covered with rocky chips of fossilized wood, because the now-rocky-and-stark landscape was once a deciduous forest. The ranger gave us two momentos that he'd gathered at other (legal) locations: one is a beautiful piece of fossilized metasequoia wood, and the other is a rock with three different types of leaves fossilized on it.

We spent so much time out there touring and hanging out, that eventually the ranger offered us a ride into town. So we loaded all of our earthly belongings into his pick-up and headed into Mitchell. Mitchell is quite the charmer. A few quaint cafes, a local bear named Henry who lives in a cage in the middle of town, and an old-fashioned hotel/hostel. I really liked the vibe in Mitchell. Everyone knows everyone and a lot of travelers stop through there to stay in the hotel.

After Mitchell we had a steep six-mile climb, but the rest of the day was an easy downhill coast. We met two men headed west on their bikes. One was a young college professor who we talked to for about 20 minutes by the road about everything from energy gel preferences to dogs in Kentucky. The other was a wizened old Dutchman wearing nothing but a pair of extremely baggy biking shorts cinched around his waist, cheap fluorescent green sunglasses, and a red bandana to protect his bald head from the sun. He was pulling a trailer stuffed full with gear, and covered in all manner of plastic bags.

We traveled on to the interpretive center for the John Day Fossil Beds, where we spent a good part of an afternoon looking at ancient animal skulls (things like miniature horses, horned mice, and horse-bodied creatures with sharp teeth) and viewing a very dull film about the place. I honestly don't know where we landed that day...so I'll skip ahead to what I do remember.

Some time later (maybe the day after the fossil beds) we had a short day and ended up camping in the John Day city park. We'd stopped in John Day to tour the museum of the home of Kam Wah Chung, a revered Chinese healer who diagnosed illnesses through feeling people's pulses. As we toured the museum and ate our lunch in the park, we noticed more and more people pouring into the park and setting up tents. When we inquired about what was going on, we found out that it was the weekend of the area-wide swim meet. One family told us we should just camp there, and so we pitched our little backpacking tent amongst the huge Wal-Mart tents filling the lawn. So we spent the afternoon and evening pretending that we were supposed to be there and reading our books in the shade. Very enjoyable.

The next day was a hard one with three 5,000 foot summits climb. During the first one I was saying, "They call this a gradual climb?!!!" as sweat dripped from my body. On the second I pulled some strength out of somewhere. And on the third I was questioning whether I was going to make it, and trying not to think about how long 8 miles takes at 5 m.p.h. But make it we did, and all-in-all it was a very rewarding day capped by showers at an RV park.

Yesterday was another short day into Baker City. My bike did an amazing feat and got the chain all tangled up in a weird spot, but Mechanic Heidi broke the chain, sorted things out, fixed the chain, and got Lou up and running again. Now we're having a rest day here. The camping options are limited, so we're staying at another RV park. We could complain, except we're a short distance from flush toilets, hot showers, and the jacuzzi, and our neighbors bought us ice-cream.

Tomorrow: Idaho!