Prineville to John Day, OR

"Climb every mountain."---Mother Superior, Sound of Music

Really? Every mountain? That's a lot. We climbed to Ochoco Pass and Keyes Summit today and it was very hard. Each night at rap the staff of ABB gives us a cue sheet which has directions, climbs, where to get food, sights to see, ice cream parlors, how to get to our next motel, etc. Also, there's a sheet that shows on a graph the elevation change so we can get suitably freaked out about the next day. (Possibly only speaking for myself here).

Here is today's cue sheet:

Here is the elevation profile. Just in case I was too tired after the first climb, I had a Plan B.

Not sure why I'm wearing a dress though.

First SAG.

Dayville, Oregon

D for Dicou. I guess it could be for Dayville.

The sign that greets us at the motel each night with very important information.

Flower Bed?

Shoe Tree? There must be a couple hundred pairs of shoes hanging here.

Kind of hard to make out though.

So today was a really long day---117 miles. We started riding from Prineville at 6:00am and pulled into our motel in John Day at 3:30pm. Most of the time was actually pedaling. We had three SAG stops and were advised to grab food quickly, eat, and get back on the road. Gotta keep movin'. The fun part of the day was the descent on the other side of both of the climbs. I hit 36.2mph---the fastest I've ever gone. It was so fun! It was possible because the roads were good and there wasn't too much traffic. The way to get through a long day like today was to break it down into segments or milestones. I would only think about that next leg to the SAG, or just hauling myself up to the next summit. It's doable in small bites. Lots of things in life are doable that way.

One thing that's hard about a bike trip like this, too, is that there is so much I would love to pull over and check out, but there isn't enough time. Today it was the John Day Fossil Beds. Mikey, one of the tour leaders described it----"for a geologist it's like a college student going to Cancun for spring break". It doesn't seem like something you could go see in 15 minutes. Maybe another trip.