Halfway to Baker City, OR

Today is our rest day and I will attempt to catch up from my last posting of August 14. The little towns we have been staying in either have very weak Internet service or none at all.

Our ride from Halfway to Baker City took place on Saturday, August 15. It was a beautiful day with pleasant temperatures. Most of the day we rode against a headwind but it didn't seem as strong as the day before. We warmed up with a climb to the top of a summit - 3,653', then a brisk downhill, sometimes getting as steep as 6-7%, at least that is steep for me! There were very few places to stop to eat or when we got to them they were closed. We ate everything we had packed; Powerbars, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips. My friend Anne and I would munch and get more water at the sag stops. At mile 47.2, we planned to stop at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. As we came closer to the 47 mile mark we noticed a large building with a winding road at the top of a hill/mountain. There were cars going up and down the road which lead to this building. (They looked tiny from where we were down on the main road!) We realized that this was the Interpretive Center. Since we might never come this way again we decided to bike the one mile, 370' of elevation climb, to get to the center. At the top Anne's garmin registered 10-11%. Once up there we spent an hour or so in the center looking at displays and seeing some of the movies about the Oregon Trail. There was a lot of walking paths outside but we still had more miles to ride and needed to keep going. From our vantage point we could see below us, an actual wagon train coming toward the Interpretive Center following the old wagon ruts when possible. They were planning to camp at the foot of the center that evening. So we went down the mile driveway and were right at their encampment when they rode in. We were so lucky to be in the right place at the right time to see this. Only a few of our biking group stopped because of the climb up to the center so they missed the wagon train. My one picture shows the actual ruts that still remain today from the Oregon trail.

The rest of the day went uneventful and we arrived in Baker City later in the afternoon. We stopped for a sandwich and headed into our hotel for the night. We stayed a the Bridge Street Inn, very plain and small but the lady who ran the place had fresh baked cookies ready for us and she made us breakfast and more cookies and banana bread to go!

Stats: 58.33 miles, 5hrs. 20min., fastest 27.8, avg. 10.9