Day 10 – Good Bye Oregon

By Mark Heggestad
We hit a milestone today.  We biked our first state – crossing from Oregon into Idaho.  We also biked our longest ride at 68 miles, and bookended today’s ride with a summit at each end (3,800 feet at the beginning and 4,100 feet at the end).  In between were a lot of rolling hills.  I consider it the hardest day of biking so far.  The weather was perfect (again) so we wanted to take advantage and put some distance on.

The day started in Richland, OR.  We biked highway 86 to Oxbow, OR and then State Highway 71 to Cambridge, ID.  Our road paralleled water almost the entire way (Snake River, Pine Creek and a couple reservoirs).  Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and great road conditions – with ten days of consecutive riding completed we continue to be blessed over and over on this journey.

Brownlee Reservoir

Typical Scenery Today

Snake River

Highway 71 - almost no traffic, but a lot of hills

Had a minor delay when we started this morning.  Knowing this would be our most difficult day thus far I mentally prepared myself.  We took off this morning around 8:00 knowing our first significant ascent would start within a mile.  But I was ready.  All pumped up.  And then, less than a quarter mile into our ride we brought our bikes to a complete stop and faced this:  

Wanna Play Chicken?

Apparently a local rancher was moving cattle and they were coming right down our road.  I scrambled to take this picture as the cattle kept moving straight toward us.  Two adults and a youngster, all on horses, were ushering these guys right down main street.  We never know what each day will bring us, and today the surprises started early.

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 11, 2017 at 4:30 AM

    Love the pics. Sounds like you are getting used to the hills. Stunning beauty mixed with the cattle protesting in the middle of the road! Keep it coming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMay 12, 2017 at 6:50 AM

    Moving cows..... brings back childhood memories! Loving the pics and journal!

    ReplyDelete

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