June 24, 2006
La Pine, OR - Prineville, OR: Good bye, Wayne. Hello, rolling hills.
Jacinto was happy to have hot water to wash his face this morning. Being on the road makes us appreciate the small things in life!
We ate breakfast and said goodbye to Wayne at 8:30. He was continuing up the road to do some hiking at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We were back on busy Hwy 97.
Before we had left Wayne's house, Karolyn had made copies for me of a detailed Oregon map showing the small roads around Bend. We got off of Hwy 97 at Knott Rd. and missed Bend entirely. We rode through a rural area with rolling hills, pinon, and sagebrush. We earned a few bonus miles with a mislabeled road. We saw a few day cyclists out for a spin. I tried to flag down a female cyclist for direction confirmation - she either ignored me or didn't see me. But she didn't stop.
We were hoping to find a restaurant as we got back on a secondary highway, Market Highway - but none was to be found. We passed a rural airport - no obvious food spots. We had plenty of snacks, but were hoping for real food.
The traffic was so sparse that Jacinto listened to the soccer game as he bicycled. He kept his headphones around his neck with the sound turned up.
There were many farm roads criss crossing the area heading toward Powell Butte. We pulled out the map many times trying to decide exactly which road to take - we wanted maximum country road time. Jacinto was all for making a loop up past Powell Butte and dropping back into Prineville. I was for the country roads into Powell Butte and then the straight highway to town. Since the temperatures were warming up, we agreed on the more direct route. I was ready for a cold drink. Traffic increased as we approached Powell Butte. We were still riding the rollies, mostly dry land with occasional irrigated fields. We were SURE we'd get something to eat in Powell Butte - after all it's a named town with a bigger dot on the map. The bigger the dot, the bigger the town, right?
I picked up a wire from a steel belted tire and had another flat. On the rear. Timing was not good. We were ready to get to town. We decided to try to get to town pumping the tire up. It was a pretty fast leak, we would have been better off to just fix it. We were so close to town, we kept pumping as needed. That was frequently.
Powell Butte ended up being very small. The Powell Butte store was typical of the stores you find in small towns where there is only one store. They had a little bit of everything. We were hoping for yummy food, but really should have considered ourselves happy that they had a deli with lots of deep fried things. We had chicken strips and potatoes. Ice cream for dessert. One for me and one for Jacinto. Usually we shared, but it was too hot today to share an ice cream. I wanted to eat an entire one myself. We filled up our Camelbaks with ice and water. Having ice water in my Camelbak on a hot day is kind of like Jacinto getting hot water to wash his face in the morning. It's one of those small things that matters so much. Ah!
On a rack at the store there was a county book with information on what to do and see. We browsed through it while we ate, hoping to find a campground for the night. Hmmm, the county has a campground right next to the fairgrounds. I called the number. It was already late in the afternoon. I wondered what time the office closed and if they were full. We noticed in the book that the county fair was in progress. I decided to go with full pitiful mode, with much emphasis on weary bicyclists with a flat tire. It's a good thing I had the woe is me mindset before I started my sales pitch. The woman was silent and then said slowly, "Well, we usually don't take tent campers because they're rowdy and tear things up. But I suppose two tired cyclists won't cause too much trouble." I replied, "Oh, no, ma'am. Not us. We just want a shower, dinner and to go to sleep. We've had a long day coming all the way from La Pine." But they closed the office at 5 PM. I didn't know if we would make it to town in time. It depended on how rollie the rollies were. She assured me there was a big climb between Powell Butte and Prineville. Great. If a person driving a car thinks it's a big climb, it must be a BIG climb.
It was even hotter when we went outside. My tire was completely flat. Hmmm. We decided to continue on with the pump it up method so we could at least have a shot of making it to the campground. Jacinto told me to ride in front so he could monitor the flat. We didn't want to ruin the tire.
There did end up being a long, steady climb. Just my kind of climbing. Of course, after the climb comes the downhill!
Prineville was a very, very nice little town. Just big enough to have a good grocery store, but not so big that people weren't friendly. We recognized the Prineville name as they have a group of firefighters - the Prineville Hotshots - that are frequently in our area of Colorado fighting forest fires.
We loaded up on groceries at the store. We were eating good tonight! Steak cubed small cooked with onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, broccoli, and zucchini. Yum, yum. We ate it all! No more fried chicken strips and fried potatoe wedges.
This was a wonderful campground. I can't say I've heard of other counties running a campground - but this one is certainly a model. The tent area had lush grass and shade trees. The showers were roomy and clean. The price was certainly right at $10.00! We arrived after 5pm by the time did our shopping. but went to camp host site and said thank you's a zillion times for letting us stay there. lady allow that didn't look like young wild things looked pretty tired. i suppose in her context, was good thing?
We decided to take a layover day here. The camping was nice and the town was a little larger for exploring.
It had been a long but satisfying day. It was a bit strange to be by ourselves again after riding with Wayne for several days. We were happy that our time on Hwy 97 was fairly short and we were back on good country roads. We were ready for a layover day.
Today's ride: 64 miles (103 km)
Total: 670 miles (1,078 km)
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