Today was a short day — only about 40 miles. But it still left me bone-tired. I’ve tried to come up with a good description for what I felt in my body at day’s end, but it’s a difficult kind of exhaustion to explain. I need to dig deep and find my reserves, my other gear, because today was largely about setting up tomorrow — a significant day on this trip for a number of reasons. First, there’s a decent amount of climbing — I’ll be crossing another mountain range in the morning (my third) before descending all the way into the valley of the Snake River. Second, the weather (heretofore perfect) has become less predictable, and there may be showers tomorrow afternoon. Since I’ll be over 5,000 feet for part of tomorrow morning (I’m starting at 3200 feet today) I want to get the high, cold part of tomorrow done before there’s any threat of rain. It should be doable — if I leave early enough I’ll be back down to my present altitude before the potential rains are even close, but it is something worth planning around. Finally, there’s the matter of me not being quite sure where I’m going to stay tomorrow night in the dinky town of Vale, Oregon. I called the only motel in town with a reliable phone and was told they’re full. I’m going to try again, but I’m not too hopeful and I may have to look downmarket, which is a bit of a scary thought since the one with a phone is — no kidding — called the Bates Motel.
Now that I think about it, this country, though beautiful, has its spooky side. There were lots of scenes today like the above. Things that used to be things, and are now ex-things. Here’s another one: the recently-shuttered mill at Prairie City:
But I’m safe and happy anyway — and all because of the overwhelming welcome I received here in Prairie City, Oregon. Jimi, my host from yesterday, has really pulled out all the stops. He’s a retired Forrest Service employee who still does some contracting for the government. He’s also a cyclist, and a member of warmshowers, a kind of couch-surfing app for cycle tourists. His house sits right off the Trans America route, which is one of several recognized and heavily trafficked cycle routes across the continent. He and his family have hosted visitors from all parts of the country and world — even someone from the Canary Islands, he tells me. As his son Daniel prepared dinner, Jimi gave me a futon to sleep on and a beer and generally made me feel like I was a welcome guest. Later, detecting that I was being cagy about my “family situation” (this is after all about as red a region as you can get — I saw a huge “Impeach Obama” sign on a barn-side on my ride today and many a fundamentalist church) Jimi was gracious enough to out himself first — not as LGBT or anything but as a “liberal.” It was an act of pure hospitality, and one that allowed me to completely relax into being myself in this house with these fine people. I was the “first gay guy they’d had” … and I imagine that if they’d been tracking visitors on a map of the world with pushpins, I’d have received my own special pink one — in the best possibly way. It was Jimi’s anniversary, but he’d been called into work this week and couldn’t go backpacking with his wife, who was away in the wilderness somewhere. Instead, he drank most of a bottle of wine as we sat out on his porch with Daniel (a smoke jumper.) The sun slowly sank down behind the blue mountains. Haze drifted up from the remnants of this year’s fires above John Day. Tomorrow’s going to be just fine.
