The Hooley Farm through Central Oregon

After my night in Pocatello, ID, I tried to get on the road early to see if I could make the Hooley farm in one shot. When I woke up, it was raining. It was hard to get motivated to get out the door. By the time I was packed up and ready to move, it had stopped raining. I got on the road and within 2 miles I had a flat tire. I'm pretty quick at fixing these by now, but it sure is irritating. I saddled back up and hit the road. About 2 miles later, I got another flat tire. At this point, I realized that there was no way I would make it to the Hooley farm. This is yet another reason I hate riding on the interstate. There is so much junk on the shoulder, that it's not possible to avoid it all. Most of the stuff that gives me flats I can't even see anyway.

I kept on going on the shoulder of the interstate and eventually came across signs saying that there was construction ahead. Sometimes that's a bad thing, sometimes is a good thing. At first, it had all of the traffic reduce down to one lane. That was great. It gave me the other lane to ride in, protected by a series of orange barrels. Soon, however, we were all instructed to cross the median in this single file to the oncoming side. I rode over there for a few miles, but I was seriously afraid for my life on several occasions. At one point a semi loaded with hay bails felt like it was inches from hitting me. Not so much the truck, but the bails that were hanging over the side. It was so frustrating to have all of this traffic that just didn't seem to give a damn that I was on the road. All that was at risk for them was a fender, while my life was on the line. Eventually I got off my bike in the median and walked it over to the construction zone to ride for a while. Eventually I had to get back in with the traffic because of all the construction equipment that was operating, but there was an exit just a mile further down the road. At that point I got the heck off the interstate.

I took a break at that gas station, then biked the last 15ish miles to get to Burley, ID, where I planned to stop for the night. As I was rolling through town, looking for a place to camp, I saw a little motel and figured I'd ask how much a room was. The headwind that day had me pretty worn out, so if the price was right I thought I'd treat myself. When I first pulled up, one of the guys in the lobby asked me if I was biking to Alaska. I said, "No, Louisiana." They chuckled for a while, then told me that the last cyclist that had stopped in was headed to Alaska. They all thought he was nuts. They thought I was only a little bit crazy until I told them the route of my trip and how far I had come already. The guy at the desk cut me a deal for the night.

The next morning I got out early and headed for Filer, ID, on the highway (NOT the interstate). About a mile from town I got another flat. When flats become this frequent, it is quite obvious that it's time for new tires. I fixed it and kept on rolling and got to the Hooley farm just as they were finishing lunch. After gorging myself on their would-be leftovers, I went outside to clean up my bike a little and to look over the tires. It was kind of amazing to see how much junk had stuck into my tires over the last few days. I ended up throwing one of them out and putting my spare on to get me to Boise.

While I was cleaning up my bike, my friend Isaac was divvying out produce to the customers of his CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). His garden is amazing and his customers seem to love what they're getting. I think he harvested and sold something like 700 ears of corn that day. His sister, Sarah, and I went out to pick a few things while Isaac was busy with customers. He has this funny little truck that I got to drive. It's got a flatbed and the driver sits on the right side of the cab. It seems perfect for what they do. It was pretty weird to convince my left hand to control the manual transmission.

Throughout the day I had to keep snacking. I'm used to continuously putting food in my mouth throughout the day to keep my energy up. Also, they don't really eat supper until they're done working. They keep working as long as they have light. Supper was after dark. Luckily they had stuff to snack on in the kitchen and the supper was most certainly worth the wait.

The next morning I slept in. I learned that sleeping in at this point is about 9:00am. That only comes after initially waking at about 6-6:30 to freak out a little, wonder where I am, think about packing and where I'm riding to, come to grips with reality and the knowledge of the day off, then a restroom break. Once all that was resolved, I could go back to bed for a little while. In the morning I worked on my route a little, used the internet, and started laundry. In the afternoon I made a connection with someone to stay with near Boise, packed some stuff up, mailed some stuff home, and got the laundry into the dryer before heading out to help Isaac pick tomatoes.

When we finished harvesting, we headed for town to go to the county fair. His sister was already in town, so we met her there. It has been a long while since I've been to a fair to look around. It seemed very similar to the York County Fair back home, but with better food options. We looked at paintings, photographs, sugar beets, alpaca, and draft horses. The alpaca had all been sheered everywhere except the top of their heads. All of them looked goofy. I wish I had thought to bring my camera, but unfortunately I didn't remember to do ANYTHING with my camera while I was staying with the Hooleys. I didn't take a single picture while I was there. I'm a little frustrated with myself for that one.

While we were at the fair, someone said something about jalapeno poppers. At the sound of those, we decided that we should make them. Isaac had jalapenos from the garden, and they knew who to ask for a recipe. On our way out of the fair, we tracked down a recipe and then went to do a little grocery shopping for the missing ingredients. Back at the farm, Isaac and Sarah made the poppers while I finished packing up for the ride out in the morning. I think I ended up eating half the pan. They were delicious.

The next morning I had breakfast and headed out of the house to leave the serenity of the Hooley farm. When I got to my bike, the front tire was flat. I'm still a little puzzled by that one. I took the tire and tube off, but couldn't find a problem. I pumped up the tube, but I couldn't find a leak. I just put in a new tube and headed off. Despite the rough start, it was a great day for a ride. For the first time in a very long time, I had a tail wind. I knocked out 89 miles in about 6 hours, including a few stops and a brief descent into a canyon (which is always accompanied by the ascent on the other side). I spent the night at a KOA in Mountain Home, ID. They're always nice places to stop, but they're also more expensive than any other place to camp. Either way, it was a shower and a place to set up the tent.

The next morning I had breakfast and then hit the road to Boise. When I got a little ways down the road, I called Russ. When I rode out this direction two years ago with my friend Dustin, we stayed with Russ in Eagle, just north of Boise. Like last time, he planned to ride out to meet me. I made pretty good time to Boise and met up with Russ before noon. We pedaled towards his house, stopping at a couple of bike shops along the way. I bought a new chain and two new tires. My chain wasn't shot yet, but I like to have an extra. The tires, as you may have gathered from reading, were a much needed replacement. At Russ' place, we did a whole lot of work on my bike. It had seen some rough weather, so I hosed it off, then we took apart the chain and rear cassette for a good cleaning. It was amazing how much crap came off of the rear cassette. I suppose that's what a few thousand miles will do. Russ had some extra handlebar tape, so we re-wrapped my handlebars with a little extra padding. It also added a little bit of personality to my bike, as the new bar tape is a fairly vibrant shade of purple. Russ also had a better pump than I had been using and some different gloves for me to try. Like last time, it was a great pleasure to stay at his place and do some sorely needed cleaning and maintenance on my bike. On my way out in the morning, Russ made a contribution to the "Feed Neal Fund" as well as to Mennonite Disaster Service.

While rolling out of the Boise area, a cyclist caught up with me and asked where I was headed. This sparked about 8 or 9 miles worth of conversation, which made the miles fly by. It was his birthday, and it is the tradition of his friends that on your birthday you must bike your age in miles. I don't remember how old he said he was, but I told him I was just working ahead. As I got to the Idaho/Oregon border, things got a little bit more middle-of-nowhere feeling and the temperature kept rising. It got to about 94, which is the hottest I'd seen in a while. After passing through Vale, OR, I ended up stopping in Harper. There isn't much there, but they've got the only gas station for miles in either direction and a school. I spent the night in the grass by the school. I made sure to ask someone if there was automatic sprinklers there. Any time I see green in the middle of what otherwise looks like a desert, I'm hesitant to set up my tent. I learned on my last trip that sprinklers can cause a rude awakening.

At the gas station, I learned that there was another cyclist named Ryan just a few hours ahead of me. They said he intended to camp in Juntura, 34 miles further down the road. With this knowledge in mind, I got up early and pedaled hard to try to catch him. I expected him to stop at Burns for the night, because there wasn't really any other option, so if I didn't catch him on the bike, I just needed to look for him in Burns. I was plotting all of this while I got a bite to eat in Juntura. After leaving town, there were two pretty solid climbs coming up. As I climbed the first, I got near the top and saw someone stopped on the side of the road. I had caught Ryan much earlier than I had expected. He was having one of those days where you just don't really want to push. I understand the feeling. We ended up riding together the rest of the way to Burns. It was a good thing we stuck together, because the last stretch before town was long, flat, and windy. Since we were together, we could take turns drafting off of each other. This makes wind SO much more bearable.

As a bit of an aside, you can learn more about Ryan by visiting his website at http://www.ryanprizio.com. He started in Connecticut on July 1st with zero cycling experience, and has learned a lot as he has traveled. He's nearing the end of his journey to the coast, but is currently mulling over what it would take to bike across the rest of the continents. Bold.

When we got to Burns, I learned that Ryan has made it this far into his trip without having paid for lodging. He has done a lot of stealth camping, traded labor for lodging, and utilized online communities like http://www.couchsurfing.org and others. I told him I planned on paying for a site, so he could just set up at my site. That night we had Thai food in Burns, Oregon. I never would have guessed that Burns would have a Thai restaurant.

It started to really cool off that evening as we were getting to our tents. In the morning it was very difficult to get out of the sleeping bag. During breakfast, I checked the weather on my phone. There was a "special weather statement", so I clicked on it. Apparently Burns, OR, recorded a new record low for that date, getting down to 28 degrees for the night, surpassing the previous low of 30 degrees. no wonder it was tough to get out of the sleeping bag.

After breakfast we stopped at a Safeway for some last minute items before heading into the middle of nowhere. We moved at a pretty good pace to Riley before taking a break. Next we pushed on to Hampton, and eventually to Brothers. All three of these places were barely more than intersections. At Brothers there was a rest area with lush, green grass to camp in. I knew that there had to be under ground sprinklers in the area, but I couldn't find them. If I could have, I would have put one of my camping pots over the sprinkler head with one of my bags on top of that. A 30 minute cycle of high pressure sprinkler water really cleans a pot well! Ryan and I gorged ourselves on beans, rice, and corn tortillas for supper. I'm bad at guessing how much rice is actually in the pot when it hasn't been cooked yet. We ended up with a lot. Anyway, I never found the sprinkler head, so at about 3:30am the sprinklers kicked on, so Ryan and I were now camping in the artificial rain of the Oregon desert.

In the morning, after we had packed up our wet tents, Ryan and I headed to the bar/gas station/restaurant/post office/convenience store for breakfast. About 70 miles back someone had recommended the breakfast at this place. It was so good, we ended up eating breakfast twice. We stuffed ourselves stupid with eggs, hashbrowns, toast, bacon, pancakes, and coffee. Cycling is a little rough at first with a full stomach, but as the day wears on, you just kind of realize that you don't need to stop to eat. Ever. We got to Bend and neither of us was hungry. I had planned on continuing on to the town of Sisters, but Ryan's knee had started hurting yesterday and was still bothering him today. He decided to stop, and I decided I'd just stop as well. We hung out at a restaurant for a while and ended up finding someone willing to house us for a night in town.

While we were in the restaurant, it started to rain. It continued to drizzle as we headed across town towards our host for the night, Diane. While cruising across town, Ryan got a flat. When we took the tire off, we found the biggest piece of glass I've ever seen embedded in his tire. I found out then that he had been riding the same tire since Connecticut. And the same chain. Like I said, he's learning a lot as he goes. I'm impressed at how well he has done on his first tour with no prior knowledge of the sport.

At Diane's place, we got set up with a guest room and a warm shower. It was fantastic. We talked with Diane about bicycle touring for quite a while that evening. Apparently she biked all over Mexico a few years back. As I planned for my departure from her place, I saw that the weather was supposed to be less than cooperative. It was going to be "unseasonably cool" and raining. I talked with Diane about bike shops in the area where I could pick up a couple of things to help keep me warm during the ride. She ended up lending me a pair of waterproof socks. You should just google them, I don't know how to explain them. I think they saved my toes. When I get to Portland I'm going to mail them back to her.

I had a pretty long day ahead of me, so I tried to get out at a decent hour. It was a short ride to get to Sisters, and beyond that I would be climbing Santiam Pass and Tombstone Pass before following the river to Sweet Home, OR. I grabbed a bite to eat in Sisters because it didn't look like there would be much option down the road. I also made the assumption that I'd be able to find water down the road. As I left Sisters, the rain picked up a little as I climbed Santiam pass. The climb in the rain wasn't too bad, but the descent was very cold. Not very long after reaching the bottom, I started to climb again, this time up to Tombstone pass. This climb was shorter, but it had a much longer descent on the other side. I took pictures of the signs warning drivers of the 11 miles of 6% downgrade to come. For those 11 miles, I may as well have unclipped my shoes from the pedals. It was nice to just cruise without all the work. I can see why so many people like having an engine on their bike. The down side was that it was still raining and I was still freezing as I sat there and coasted down the mountain. All this while I had not been able to find a place to fill my water bottles since I left Sisters. I ran out of water at the bottom of the 11 miles of 6% downgrade and still had 21 miles to go before arriving in Sweet Home. It's a good thing it was cold and rainy. I got by without more water, but I had to really tank up when I got to town. I cramped up a little early in the evening, but once the water and electrolytes had time to sink in, my muscles eased up.

In Sweet Home it was still raining, and I just didn't feel like dealing with the crappy weather in a tent. I found the first motel along that road and got a room. The next day I would bike a short 27 miles to Albany, OR. With a short day ahead, I decided to sleep in. I did the usual early morning panic about getting on the road in a timely fashion, followed by a trip to the restroom, before catching a couple more hours of sleep.

From the hotel I found a small diner where I got a late breakfast before hitting the road to Albany. The ride was another rainy one, but it was short. I got to the Quality Inn on the edge of Albany in the early afternoon and checked in.

I suppose I never explained why I took this route through Central Oregon rather than sticking to my previous plan of following the Columbia River, where I would have touched Washington. While in Idaho, I found out that District IV of Mennonite Disaster Service was having their annual meeting in Albany this weekend. I did some figuring and worked with Russ (in Eagle) on a route to get me here in time to attend and meet some people and see some familiar faces in the MDS world. Tomorrow morning is the start of their meeting, so I got here just in time. I plan to stick around through the morning before hitting the road for Portland, where I will most likely take at least two days off the bike to take in the city and visit friends. I'll probably look for some of those sweet waterproof socks for myself.