Day 27 Serpentine Route through Kentucky Sanders – Stanton, KY 107 miles

I thought today was going to be a tough one, and it was. Not a yard of the route was flat. Hills and more hills slowed me considerably and ate up the daylight too quickly. A northeast headwind plastered me all day. I felt like I was on the beach in winter. However, it was cool and dry. Overnight I shivered the hours away in my tent and was happy to bike in long pants and a jacket for the first hours of the day. Autumn beckons.

The scenery today was pleasant. I passed many small farms in the first part of the day. The hills made me stop frequently to pet horses and goats. As the sun rose I spotted several deer, and heard herons, kingfishers, and coyotes. In the middle of the day I entered horse racing country around Lexington. It reminded me of the area I grow up in around Chester County, Pennsylvania. There were many well manicured farms with giant stately horses apparently well fed; none would take my meager offering of roadside grass when I stopped occasionally to look at the Kentucky map. The terrain around Lexington would make a great extended roller coaster ride.

The hills of the eastern United States have kind of crept up on me. So much toil was spent on the Rockies. Then there was the mental grind of pedaling through the corn belt. That is over. I shifted gears like a madman today. Tomorrow will be more of the same and maybe worse as I go up into the Appalachian hills of eastern Kentucky and western Virginia. My quads have already forgotten about their two day break this past weekend.

What helps on massive challenges like some mountain gaps I will ascend over the next 48 hours is zero distractions. A bicycle, especially one with a loaded machine, has apparently been such a spectacle for some Kentucky folks that they cannot help but say something when driving by. The roads are narrow and the traffic has been heavy. Ideally this will change over these tough passes so I can focus on the difficulties ahead. Ideally it would be just the sound of me and the machine reaching for the divide and pushing towards the ocean.

Day 8 The Thin White Line Challis – Butte City, ID 105 miles

The air was sharply cold when I woke this morning, about 38 degrees. I enjoyed a strong tailwind to Challis, where I ate my second breakfast of the day at a local diner. Route 93 between Challis and Arco is an incredibly straight road. The first 30 miles of it leaving Challis felt like I was in quicksand – uphill, headwind, rough road. I stuck to the thin white line that separates road from shoulder. Here the paint smoothes out the cobble on a chip-sealed road. Obviously in a car you’d never think about it, but with 28 mm tires, and looking for every advantage I could get this morning, I tried to keep my tires on the line.

Ironically, what jump started me after about 40 miles of riding was a sharp climb up Willow Mountain. It made me think of a professional bike race in Europe; I envisioned simple resolve and human willpower – nothing more, nothing less - propelling each racer to the top of the road. My reward for myself at the top of the Willow Mountain climb was an outstanding view of Mount Borah - highest in Idaho – which I gazed at while downing 4 granola bars and two bananas.

The weather for the bulk of the day was near-perfect for cycling – 75 degrees for a high, and broken clouds. Mount Borah (just above the front of my helmet) and its surrounding peaks showed a new coating of snow from the weekend’s cold, wet weather. The rest of the day featured flat roads and serious desert. A couple hours before dark I spotted my first antelope of the trip. As I slowed by bike to gaze at them, I hit a rumple strip in the road. Sensing danger, they took off at a speed that made my biking look slow indeed. As I made camp, I had a couple from Virginia snap a photo of me in front of one of the many stand-along peaks of eastern Idaho. It was good to hear a southern accent! One last look outside before sleep showed the red moon coming up over the desert horizon.

Day 4 Eastern Oregon Mountains and Desert; Mitchell-Unity, OR 119 miles

Today was a mighty pull. It felt like a long day, not just due to the mileage but the variety. In the morning I made the first of three climbs – a sharp six mile hill out of Mitchell. The cool of the morning helped me. After that climb I made a long gradual descent into the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, where the John Day River scours through red cliffs. The John Day is a very unusual river. It has several forks to it, and almost doubles back on itself enroute to the Columbia. The wild and scenic part is supposed to be a fantastic float, but only if you do it in the spring or fall. This time of year - and this hot dry summer - the river runs little more than a trickle. One if the most unique wildlife sightings today was an osprey fishing over the river. I caught a glimpse of this water bird hovering in front of a back-drop of sage-covered desert hills. A moment later I passed a sailboat in a parking lot – in the middle of a desert. I must have been dreaming of home….

Dayville was a picturesque little town where I re-hydrated. I then got to the relatively large desert town of John Day in mid-afternoon. The thermometer read 91. After a break there I made off 15 miles for Prairie City under hot skies. My goal was farther up the road, and two more steep hills before bed. In Prairie City, I watched a cooling cloud bank move east across the desert hills. This made the nine mile climb starting at 5 PM a bit easier. Tailwinds eased me up the long grade that wound into the forest. I met a couple other tourers at the top of this hill – Dixie Pass - and we exchanged words of encouragement and half-truths about how tough other hills would be; ‘not too bad’ in bike language means burning legs!

Eastern Oregon is home to tremendous natural variety. At the top of Dixie Pass, the forest had fully returned. These Blue Mountains are just high enough to capture precious moisture to grow trees. The dry forest here consists of stately ponderosa and lodgepole pines, firs, and tamaracs. By this time of day, Route 26 was virtually deserted and I descended Dixie Pass at 25 mph on a smooth, wide-shouldered road through a beautiful forest. The smell of huckleberries filled the mountain had me day dreaming about Mom’s blueberry pie. I tackled the final summit of the day – Blue Mountain - starting around 7 and getting to the top about 45 minutes later. It was an equally wonderful descent from Blue Mountain. Over the two evening climbs I roused about 20 mule deer from their feeding stations along the side of the road. They hopped away upon being startled, several looking back at me inquisitively.

With about 5 miles to go, and sensing my destination of Unity, I returned to desert. As if somebody had flicked a switch, the wind picked up dramatically and blew into my face at 30 miles per hour! What a way to finish a long day as a dust / thunderstorm pummeled me. Tumbleweed blew everywhere across the road. Just crazy wind. I barely made headway into this tiny desert town, and found a little campground whose owner is related to the Midgett family of the Outer Banks. Small world, I was meant to stay here.

Day 2 Climbing the Cascades; Corvallis-Sisters, OR 105 miles

Today I suffered like few other days in my life. A main challenge in my cross-country trip came early in the month, and abruptly. The ride started reasonably as I made good time to Sweet Home on Route 20. Caught a swim in refreshing Santiam Creek (photo) Then the Cascades showed themselves, and on a brutally hot, still day, usual for the west side of this spectacular range. First was the climb to Tombstone Pass, as I made 6 mph for 2 hours on the long 4 percent grade. Time just melted away, and I ran out of water frequently. An imaginary tip of the water bottle got several cars to stop. Strangers saved me. How much water can a biker carry – I went through gallons today. Route 20 in the normally wet Cascades was bone dry save for a couple tiny creeks. In my most desperate moment I filtered water from a trickle of a muddy creek. At the base of the Santiam Pass climb a couple from Canada gave me a cold Coke. In the most challenging moments of a trip like this, one looks for the smallest slivers of hope, or resolve, where really there should be none at all. After the soda stop, I struggled up mighty Santiam Pass, and at the top peered back into the steamy haze of a Cascade sunset. As daylight faded I descended the east side of the pass, so tired that I had to stop going downhill. By nightfall I made it to a Forest Service campground, skipped dinner, and crawled into my tent. Today may be a benchmark by which others on this journey – and throughout life - are measured. I can say when I struggle again, ‘relative to the Cascade climb in 09, this is not too bad.’ Very little wildlife today, I had little energy to focus on anything else but the pavement under my wheels.