ETHAN IS A PIPEFITTER.  He's part of a crew that travels the country, doing lots of road construction-related work but taking on other opportunities when they arrive.  In his early 20's he's racked up a mountain of debt but is sanguine about paying it all off.  Someday.

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This evening he's parked up in the spot diagonally across from mine, in the Depot RV Park in Prairie City, OR.  There aren't a lot of other options in the area, so we're each fortunate to have found our way here.

The camp host is a friendly, outgoing gent who retired from ranching nearby and now keeps himself busy looking after the denizens of this little corner of the world.  I'm in the site next to his rig, with my laundry strung on a line across the hard-surface pull-through and my tent off to one side.

It was quite a day for me.  44 miles, at an average of barely 1 percent grade, took the Mickey right out of me.  For the first time, I pulled over and napped for almost an hour in the middle of the day, at the well-sited State Park just east of Mount Vernon.  (Recall that I had fantasy delusions of reaching this park yesterday but thought better of it.  Good decision.)

Although I didn't play the Guard Rail Game in quite the same fashion today as on yesterday's big climb, I did make use of quite a number of them.

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It was a tale of three rides.  Leaving Dayville early (0645) meant I had US 26 nearly entirely to myself for several hours.  It remained pleasantly cool, and at times the only sounds were those of the John Day River burbling alongside the road, the morning birds (including red winged blackbirds, chattering and scolding overhead as I passed through "their" territory) and the gentle breeze.  It was about as serenely peaceful as you can imagine.

Somewhere around 11 the workaday traffic increased noticeably, and continued until maybe 2:00.  That was the middle of my riding day.  One bright spot was this sign in John Day, which nicely counterbalanced those posted by Karen Cook a few weeks ago.  (I did ride by those and took notice of having seen them previously, so I didn't bother to take my own photos.)

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The final portion returned to a lower traffic regime, as I neared Prairie City.  I got in about 1530, hot and tired and ready to call it a day.  Thankfully a shower, a beer (thanks Ethan), a John Daly (courtesy of the campsite host) and dinner (washed down with two more bottles of water) have restored me.  Sort of.  I'm still worried about tomorrow but I'll take it as it comes.  Already looking forward to Thursday and an easy short day into Baker City, where I'll meet one of the other members of the motorcycle forum I hang out on.  We'll have dinner together, and it'll be very pleasant.