Days 87 & 88- McKenzie Bridge, OR to Richardson Campground to Florence, OR

We made it to the COAST!!!!! We did ride yesterday too but I can’t remember it because all I can think about is how we made it to the COAST!!! Today’s ride was amazing. It seemed like all the flowers in Oregon were blooming for us and cheering us on! We road with eitherr a river, a creek or a lake to our left the entire time, and the lush Jungle like forest of Oregon on our right. The trees here are breathtaking. They are huge; some with moss, some standing hundreds of feet high with leaves only on the top, and some short, fat trees with leaves exploding off every branch! We were so excited today that when we finally stopped for lunch we had already ridden 47 miles. After lunch we only had 14 more miles until the coast. We stretched our necks out on every turn we came upon expecting that the ocean was just on the other side, but Oregon wasn’t going to give it up so easy. After the 14 mile countdown we were in Florence and we still had to go 4 more miles to the beach… and even those four miles didn’t give us anything… not even a peak. It wasn’t until we followed a little sign said Beach Access and There It was!!! The Beautiful Atlantic Ocean… Just kidding. The Pacific!!!

We hiked down to the water with our bikes and dipped our tires in.

We have made it across the country!

Matt 4,252 Miles

Jessie 2,653 Miles

Now we are going to celebrate! We are going to put on our least smelly clothes and see if we can get ourselves into a fancy restaurant.

Tomorrow we are going to start biking down the coast to our homes in Southern California.

Thank you all for following us on this journey of a lifetime.

Day 86- Redmond, OR to Mackenzie Bridge, OR

Our Last mountain Pass. Today was definitely one of the top 3 rides of the trip. It was the most beautiful scene. First, we road into Sisters, which was a really fun, and touristy town. Because it was the weekend and there was a car show, it was packed with people and cars. We are also assuming they were hosting a hippie/ tent festival because of all the hippies and tents. It made Matt and I wish that we would have pushed on yesterday and stayed the night there. We left the city and headed towards the last mountain pass on our trip. It made us nervous because it was a scenic two-lane road with no shoulders. But, we felt much more comfortable when we realized that there were almost as many bikers on the road as there were cars. We climbed a very gradual 10 miles of windy mountain roads. Trees were all around us. We don’t know what kind of trees but they were beautiful and they were everywhere. As we got closer to the pass we saw more and more snow and the dense forest opened up to a huge lava rock bed. At the top of the pass we got to hike into an observatory made of lava rocks and look at all the mountains and retired volcano’s around us. The ride down the other side was even more beautiful and the fact that we were able to coast at 25 miles an hour back and forth on all the turns in the road, made it feel even more unreal.

We met a lot of really nice bikers today who were going up that hill for fun. I think Matt and I would both come back and do this hill again. It was amazing.

Day 85- Prineville, OR to Redmond, OR

Today we took a semi rest day. We biked 16 miles to the next town and we are going to hang out, relax and walk around town. We had lunch at the One Block Over Café. It was very good. Tonight we are going on a date night to the local brewery. Matt is going to brush his hair and I may shave my armpits.

Not very eventful today, but still fun. Redmond is a cute little town with one of the friendliest bike shops we have been in.

Days 83 & 84- Prarie City, OR to Dayville to Prineville, OR

Some highlights from the last few days:

-In John Day, a few  towns before Dayville, we stopped into a health food store and talked to the lady working there for awhile. When we went to check out and buy our pasta, she told us we could have it for free.

-The church we stayed at in Dayville was amazing. Thanks John for the recommendation. They had showers, a full kitchen, and a washer and dryer. And when we were there we met Alan. He’s walking 6,000 miles from Seattle to Washington D.C. to end gender discrimination. He was a really interesting guy. If you want to check out his website, here it is: www.intothelightwalk.com.

-We climbed two substantial passes today. And we only have one more big pass, which we’ll climb tomorrow, before we get to the coast!

-We’re staying with a warmshowers host, Kimberly, tonight in Prineville. She’s amazing. When we got here she was teaching a yoga class. When she finished, she took us to her farm up the street where we fed her calves and chickens and tried some delicious vegetables from her garden. Then she made us a delicious dinner and took us out for ice cream. What a great way to end the day. Thanks Kimberly!

Alan

Feeding the calves

Matt collecting eggs

Part of Kimberly’s garden

Riding through picture gorge

A cool tree full of shoes in the middle of nowhere

 

Day 82- Baker City, OR to Prarie City, OR

Today we did a miniature triple bypass. Our total miles were around 70 and we had three little passes to get over. They were not too difficult, just time consuming. Each one was about four or five miles of real climbing. This ride was the first time that Matt and I felt like we were in the Northwest. We had always imagined that it is green everywhere and raining all the time… and like our imaginations, there were lush green trees everywhere and every time we would get close to the top of the passes we would enter into the rain and mist. It was really funny to see the bad weather waiting for us at the top of the hill and the good weather waiting at the bottom.

Today Matt and I also settled on our trail names. Mine is Epiphany and Matt’s is Trucker Knuckles. Both of these names came about because of the most reflective times of our travels, the up hills. Going up hill is an interesting time. We are both working very hard to move our bikes up that hill so we choose not to waste energy on talking. Instead we do a lot of reflecting. Which brings me to how we chose our names. Every time we go up a hill, I have an epiphany. For example, yesterday my epiphany was that I love stuffed crust pizza and today I realized I really like humor. Profound stuff. So my name is Epiphany. In turn, every time we go up a hill Matt thinks we get fisted by all the truckers. For example, “That trucker just fisted us!” So his name is Trucker Knuckles.

After all this time reflecting, we have realized… simple things are good and bad drivers suck. 🙂

The fastest bicycle drawn wagon west of the Mississippi

Our first smores

Our first smore accident

Day 81- Oxbow, OR to Baker City, OR

Holly heat wave batman! Today was a hot one. We both didn’t realize that Oregon had so much desert-like terrain. We weren’t without services for very long but because it was so hot, and the majority of the ride was up hill, we drank up all of our water bottles and our water bladder. The desert here is so beautiful and it reminds me a lot of California. The only difference is that California is flat.

The ride was fairly easy and went by quickly. I think when it is warm outside my knee feels better because I had an extremely nice day. For the first time EVER, Matt was trying to keep up with me instead of the other way around. It might also have something to do with the fact that at our half way mark Matt and I agreed that we were getting stuffed crust pizza for dinner!!! Something about the seductive image of crispy, bubbly, cheesy pizza waiting for me in Baker must have put a fire under my butt. When we got to Baker city we got a cheap hotel (even though I really wanted to have pizza delivered to our tent) and went out to get some groceries for the next day and see the town.

Baker is a city of about 10,000 people. They have a really hip downtown area, a history museum, a beautiful capitol building, a local farmer’s co-op, and one of the nicest public parks I have ever seen. But we will always remember them for their stuffed crust pizza that you can find anywhere a pizza hut is located.

P.S. Matt and I still half expect to see my cousin Dale and Uncle Buck pull up next to us on one of our climbs in a limousine with the air on full blast, while drinking beers… The next 6 days would be ideal… It is really hot out here and we have a couple tough climbs ahead of us…

We waited for the guy who pushes you on your bike to show up, but he never did.

Jessie’s new bike flag

Days 78 to 80- Lowell, ID to White Bird, ID to New Meadows, ID to Oxbow, OR!!

Here are some highlights from the last three days:

Lochsa to White Bird

We left the beautiful national forest area and reentered  civilization. We had one pass to climb that had a HUGE downhill on the other side.  2 miles into this downhill we were supposed to turn onto the old 95 and get off the highway but Matt had the bright idea of letting me go down first and of course, I missed the sign so we ended up going at a crazy speed down the side of a highway. Haha, oops. When we got to our destination we met a grounds keeper, who I am pretty sure is Willy Nelson, and he told us all sorts of crazy stories about growing up in the 60’s and being in movies with Jack Nicholson; I believe every bit of it! He let us put our tent behind his house next to the river and sleep.

Whitebird to New Medows

We woke up and had breakfast 1 mile up the street at Hoot’s Café. Yummy! Matt and I were both really lazy and biking really slow almost all day.  We stopped at fruit stand and bought hazel nut bread, cherries, pears, and peaches. It was so heavy and we knew we had a little climb ahead of us but it was so worth it. We saw so many motorcyclists today. Way more than we normally do. It is so weird with them because sometimes they are nice and they wave and sometimes they are too cool for school. You can never tell which is which. Matt tells me to play it cool because we want them to think we are cool, but I can’t help that I wave like Stacy from Wayne’s World.

I am not sure why but the hotel gods were telling us to book a hotel and not sleep in our tent, so we listened, and for good reason. Out of nowhere (well, probably somewhere) there was a huge storm with wind, and thunder and lightning. When we left this morning we saw that trees had been blown over, and all the benches, chairs and trashcans were strewn about. The hotel owner says it happens maybe once a year. We were very happy we got a hotel.

New Medows to Oxbow OREGON

We powered out 90 miles today and we finally made it to OREGON!!! This is the last state on the trans America route, and then we head down the pacific coast.  Today we rode next to all sorts of rivers and damns. We went into Hell’s Canyon, which I think is the deepest or second deepest canyon in North America, at least that’s what Willie Nelson told us. I almost got side swiped by a deer!!! I heard a noise to my right and looked up to see a deer running full throttle towards me. It must have been trying to cross the street and didn’t see me until the last minute when it jumped sideways and went back into the trees.

This morning was cold and the air was so foggy that we couldn’t see very far in front of us and by the afternoon it was up to about 100 degrees. We are camping tonight in a campsite next to the snake river and Matt’s making pasta!

Days 75 to 77- Missoula, MT to Wendover Campground, ID to Lowell, ID and rest day

Today we went over Lolo pass and had one of the most beautiful rides yet. I have never wanted to be a poet so badly, because maybe then I could describe the sight. The forest was the most dense forest I have ever seen, all the trees were the same size and all different shades of green. There were some trees that when the light hit them it looked like they were glittering and with the wind blowing ever so slightly it made a feeling of extreme spirituality run through me. It is something that I think everyone should see. After we set up camp we rode our bikes 6 miles down to the natural hot springs. They were 1 ½ miles into the woods. It is still crazy to me how hot water bubbles up from the earth like that.

The next day we only went 65 miles because we were going to take a day off and go white water rafting!!! Again, It was a beautiful bike ride and we decided to stop at an unmarked natural hot spring that a passing biker told us about. This hot spring had a more difficult hike up which kept people from visiting it, but we still managed to walk up on some naked people… oops, I guess the unspoken rule is “if there are more than two cars parked at mile marker 142, don’t go to the spring.”

We arrived in Lowell and met two other cyclists who were heading east. We shared some stories and went to bed early again, excited to get up and raft the Lochsa river in the morning.

The rafting was actually very interesting. The rapids were roaring. Mostly class 4r’s (which I found are the kind that make a person scream a LOT). We went 22 miles down the river and hit 35 rapids. If anyone wants to see the pictures that we were too cheap to buy you can enter the following into your browser http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=lochsainfo&gallery_id=2683275&curpage=1

The strange and sad part of the day was when we saw that someone had driven off the road into the river that morning and workers were trying to retrieve the body. It was a horrible scene and we all give well wishes to the family… After that was over we tried to enjoy the rest of the trip and keep up our spirits. You could tell that everyone wanted to be happy but felt guilty for feeling that way. I debated putting that story up here but things like that happen and we all can give our respect and move on.

Riding into the Lochsa river valley

The first hot springs

The hike to the second hot springs

Days 73 & 74- Hamilton, MT to Missoula, MT and rest day in Missoula

We woke up and had a delicious home made breakfast with Cassie and Tim, said our good byes and got back on the road. We both knew we only had 55 miles ahead of us so we took our time and stopped in every town and ate something. It was really fun and we didn’t get to Missoula until 4:30.  The house we pulled up to was really unique. The outside was brick with white trim and columns and the inside was covered with random art and had a room set up for Jazz shows. Our host Brent was very nice and he let us stay and extra night so that we could explore the downtown area. He even let 3 other bikers stay in his house. It was a little bike community. On our day off we went to The Adventure Cycling headquarters where we got free ice cream and our picture taken. After that we went out to the Kettle House brewery with Brent and our two new biking friends, Matt and Andrew. After some food and some more beers we called it a night. Matt and I might want to move here for a bit, there is so much to do.

Where’s Jessie???

Brent’s place

Day 72- Jackson, MT to Hamilton, MT

Today started out FREEZING cold. We had frost on our tent when we woke up. The first 18 miles were very cold but we stopped in Wisdom and had the best blueberry pancakes we have ever had. By the time we were done eating it had warmed up. We crossed the continental divide for the last time and then had a really fun down hill for 8 miles. After we stopped for lunch our Warm Showers hosts, Tim and Cassie, drove by and offered to take my panniers off my bike. For the last 20 miles I could ride as fast as Matt and we made great time. We did 96 miles in about 6 ½ hours. We got to Tim and Cassie’s place and showered and did some laundry. They were at a wedding so we had the place to ourselves. We went to the local brewery and were in bed by 9.

Our great warmshowers hosts