Totally bendacious

We have officially quit riding the bike (a few days ago). In fact, it's been carefully stuffed in a cardboard box along with several smelly riding clothes for days. While Monty, the bike, enjoyed a well earned box coma we enjoyed a few beers......at no less than eight Bend breweries.

Before Bend we last updated you all from "lovely" Gooding, Idaho. In Gooding we went to Food World, the local market, to pick up a vegetable to add to dinner but instead found ourselves eating a Marie Calendar frozen chocolate pie accompanied by a six pack of beer... Mmmm. Maybe.
From Gooding we rode through more desert and wind than one could ever desire, but we made it to Mountain Home, Id. Along the way we passed through a sleepy town on the Snake River, Glens Ferry. Here we met a man who was lone touring to the Continental Divide. Apparently too much time alone was not a good thing, too much time in ones own head gets weird I guess.
We didn't know it yet, but we had arrived on a popular cross country touring route, the transamerica, and mr. Crazy-pants was clue #1. In Mountain Home we slept in the front yard of an RV in a permanent/long term stay RV park. Very cheap, but very nice. We awoke and went to McDonalds to grab some coffee after shoveling down some cold pizza from the night before. As always we met someone very interested in our trip and bike so enjoyed an extra long cup of coffee and some good conversation with the outside world.
Clue #2 came on the way to Boise from Mt Home. We bumbled sloppily down a sandy railroad service road thinking it would be shorter, haha. We popped out in the middle of nowhere on a paved rd that went our to the interstate, but not too far down this rd, much before I-84, we saw a teensy mom and pop produce stand, an oasis in the sea of desert. Beach boys were blaring out of the speakers on the ramada, some kids came running up from a house to the stand. We walked in and a very friendly man told us that only a few weeks ago another gaggle of cyclists had come upon this magic place. He told us how he lent them his truck and they went to Boise, ran some errands, went swimming, and came back to have dinner with him and his family. This was clue #2.
Later on this miraculous day, we met up with a good friend of mine, Paris, at brewforia, for lunch. Brewforia is basically a beer store/bar. They carry over 700 varieties of beer in bottles, and a few on tap. They also have food. After riding fifty miles since breakfast and only eating a banana between one beer was more than plenty. After lunch and after Paris was off, we were still feeling a little too good to ride, so we walked next door to grab some ice cream and sit it off on some chairs with backs. Eventually we made it to our destination, Caldwell, a suburb of Boise about thirty miles down the road.
Clue #3: The Brit. We arrived at camp, which appeared to be an old KOA, Casey went to shower and I was greeted about twenty minutes later by a cheery guy with a thick Brittish accent.
He introduced himself and told me he had already met Casey, and that we had been on the road the same amount of time, except he had begun in NYC. Turns out we had taken almost identical routes since Nebraska. He wasn't taking the transamerican route in particular but had ended up on it by chance as well. This was the first time we had been informed of this ....thing. We stayed up late talking and wished each other good luck in the morning.
From Caldwell we headed off to Oregon. We made it as far as Brogan. We arrived in the afternoon to a trailer park with camping and headed up to a red double wide with a sign hanging on the door that read "office". Sublime was blasting out of the windows, we rang the doorbell, we knocked, knocked harder, and yet harder. No answer. We found a nice spot and then went back to try again. We knocked and a bigger man, with squinty eyes answer the door and registered us verrrrrry slowly. He pointed to the camping area, very vague, and said anywhere over there was good. We changed and headed over to the only store and grabbed cold drinks since it was over 100 degrees out. In the store we saw another overheated tourer, clue #4. Clue #5 came right after, we walked back to camp and some trailer residents told us they had had lots of cyclists coming through. By morning we had figured it out, the gold miners and farmers gathering at the store in the AM asked us "which way?" instead of seeming completely taken away by the idea. We ate breakfast with a not-so-shy rooster, I fed him some turkey then felt like I just assisted in cannibalism. Oops. The farmers also kept telling us about "brogan hill" and told us that after that we would have an easy day....liars.
We started up brogan hill expecting just that, a hill. About an hour later, we reached the top, Brogan Summit 3900'. So much for a "hill". We descended a bit into a high desert valley. We cruised the valley with ease, then began a second climb for the morning, up to El Dorado Summit, 4100'. We coasted about seven miles down into Unity for lunch, it was beautiful. We were then on our way up another set of mountains and into a national forest. This time we climbed through Blue mountain pass, 5100'. Then yet another lovely long coasting session just to go up one more pass, This one at 5200', then we coasted for ten steep miles back into a valley, into Prarie City where we settled for the night. It was beautiful! We also realized that our tire was not so beautiful. We were riding on the puncture protection where the rubber had rubbed away. The next day we rode downhill to John Day in hopes of finding a new tire. we tried the bicycle cooperative, only found 27" tires, tried a discount store, same deal, tried a drugstore, same deal. Apparently they weren't unaware that size hasn't been used in about twenty years.
Hoping the tire would make it, we rolled onward. Up another very gradual pass, we saw some beautiful views. Eventually we hit the top of Keyes pass, after meeting an elderly woman doing the transamerican who warned us about the pass at 4600'. From the top we became aware of how much less gradual the other side was, very steep. We flew down to the bottom and into Mitchell. Mitchell is a one street town where about everything but the one store and bar were closed down. The city park had free camping and a very nice camping area. There we met two fellows on the transamerica with whom we conversed with for a bit. Turns out that there are guides for this trail with places to stay and stop and such. I think I liked the way we did it more, more adventure, and we met several people taken back by the fact that anyone would ride a bike outside of their Own town....
From Mitchell we rode straight up a long steep grade for twenty miles to the the top of another pass, these were becoming a regular in Oregon. From there it was a gradual thirty mile downhill to Prineville through another National Forest. In Prineville we stopped for a snack and then pushed out the final thirty miles to Bend, with especially aching butts.
We made it!!! We enjoyed some beer filled days in Bend working on the Ale Trail, this consists of drinking a beer at eight breweries, we included several sample trays.
Now we are on our way to San Francisco via the most opposite transportation from our bike as possible, a bright red, brand new, rental mustang.
Thanks for following folks! And even more, thank you all for the support to make it possible!

Location:NW Galveston Ave,Bend,United States