Stage 8 - 100 miles of headwinds (almost)

Friday, June 14, 2013
Ontario, Oregon, United States
After a dip in the hot tub last night, and a good night's sleep, we awoke to a chilly but clear day, mostly ready for another day's ride. We had the "Super Start" breakfast in the Super 8 lobby (waffles and packaged cinnamon rolls), then loaded up the car to drive back to where we finished last night. As a result, we didn't get started until 9AM. The forecast (checked religiously each night!), was for light and variable winds. That sounded great. However, we had a headwind from the start. Fortunately, the first twenty miles into Baker City on old US 30 were fairly flat. But it was slower than we had anticipated. We rode back into Baker City and stopped downtown at a little Oregon Trail memorial, and had our "snack". We try to stop about every twenty miles for a little "energy food" break. La Grande and Baker City are both nice little towns with apparently vibrant downtown areas. The Grand Ronde valley in which they sit is beautiful, what with the Blue Mountains on the west, and the Wallowa Mountains on the east. The trees come down the slopes nearly to the valley floor which is filled with farms. It makes for great pictures.

Leaving Baker City on old US 30 (we will follow old US 30 most of the way from here on), we headed up into the hills that separate Baker City from Ontario, Oregon. The farmland gives way to what many would call barren countryside. But it has its own beauty. For Ann, it conjures images of cowboys riding horses through the hills and sage in a Zane Grey novel. The headwinds continued, and combined with the hills, kept our pace slow. Old US 30 parallels (sort of) the I-84 freeway, but crosses over or under several times. We knew that eventually the uphill would give way to downhill before we met up with Lea in Durkee for lunch. Due to a misread of the map we thought we would hit Durkee at 40 miles, Lea kept texting to ask where we were, and we kept saying "almost there". It was actually 44 miles into the day's ride. The road going down into Durkee did allow us to get some speed, but it was still against those pesky headwinds. Durkee is really in the middle of nowhere. But some locals were setting up the community center (the old schoolhouse built in 1912) for a wedding. They graciously let Lea borrow a table and chairs for our lunch, and even let us borrow a knife to cut up the watermelon we'd been hauling in the trunk for four days!

Refueled, we headed back out knowing we'd have to ride I-84 for about 12 miles as there are no other paved roads heading towards Ontario. The headwinds continued - so much for the weather forecast! Traffic wasn't too bad, but we still much prefer the back roads - so much quieter! Getting off the interstate, we headed into the town of Huntington, (not much here either), and then headed up a two mile hill, before beginning the descent (against the wind) to the Snake River, where we stopped at Farewell Bend State Park for a break. This is where those coming west on the Oregon Trail left the river and headed overland to Pendleton where they picked up the Columbia. The day was warming up (it was about 4 PM) and the water looked very inviting.

From here we had another short (3 mile) jaunt on the interstate until getting on Oregon route 201, which would take us into Ontario (in another 30 miles). The road is lightly used and follows the Snake River for a while before crossing some rolling hills and descending into the valley where Ontario is located. Dennis decided to ride ahead as the day was getting away from us. Ann wasn't sure she could make it all the way to Ontario knowing that we still had those rolling hills. But they weren't that bad and after coming down into the valley she felt sure she could do it if she could draft behind Dave.

As we turned more south in the valley the wind became more of a crosswind, and our speed picked up. The valley here is very different than Baker City and La Grande. The surrounding hills aren't mountain ranges and don't have trees on them. There are eroded cliffs where nature has worked her magic over the eons. The irrigated farms in the valley include fields of corn, onions, potatoes (we are getting close to Idaho), and we weren't sure what else!

Finally, we saw the overpass where I-84 enters Ontario! Shortly after we rode over the freeway, the bicycle computer told us we had ridden 100 miles! At an intersection in town we saw Dennis and Lea in the car heading for dinner. A few blocks away we turned into the motel, picked up a key from the desk, and flopped on the beds for a few minutes before hitting the showers. Having "lost" an hour crossing into Mountain Time, it was almost 7 PM.

As today's stage name implies, we did ride over 100 miles today, but the headwinds were only for the first 85 of them!

[pictures to follow - I'm too tired tonight]
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