Day 7 Journal Baker City to Ontario, OR

83 miles today. It was record-breaking temps all over Oregon today. So say it was hotter than Hades says it like it was. The breakfast was really good. Best part was the hot oatmeal, done just perfect. Andy says oatmeal is wallpaper paste, but maybe that’s why a lot of this group loves it when we are served oatmeal because “it sticks” with us and seems to provide longer lasting energy. I was on the road by 7:20 and headed out of Baker City. We had all most all downhill for the first 56 miles. It was great. We followed along I-84 for most of the time, and we had to enter on to ride the interstate three times. Short distances, and all downhill. The semi trucks were courteous and moved to the far left lanes and gave us plenty of room on the wide shoulder. The bad part riding on the interstate is the debris from radial tires. Those pieces of re-tread from the tires that are on the berms have hair fine wires, and if you run over any it will result in a flat tire. Only two cyclist out of the 60+ got flats on the interstate, and a few got flats soon after exiting. The scenery was mountain ranges all around for several miles. It was not a good time to look at the landscape for quite a few miles when on the Interstate highway – it took too much concentration looking down all the time watching for the tire stuff and avoiding it. But by the time we got off the busy highway and back on Old route 30 things quieted down. Saw a few freight trains go by – one went right in to a tunnel through the mountain. It was just fun having the road continually going downhill - - I made good time most all day. But it was really heating up as early as 8:30 and when I pulled into the rest stop at mile 33, I was out of water and ready for some salty foods. Back on the road and passing through a little town, Huntington, I saw Bill and Dawn’s tandem bike out side the local café. They said it had some good pie. I was just too hot and wanted to keep on the move so passed it up this time. Hated to pass up a good piece of pie, but I’ll be looking for then pie place tomorrow! We soon were following along the Snake River basin and some good-sized lakes. Lots of fisherman in boats out today, and campers and RV’s going in and out of the campsites. Saw a lot more farming today than we saw the last couple of days. Very large fields of onions – maybe they were those delicious Vadalia onions? Sure were thousands of acres of them. Hay was baled in many places, and cattle ranches along the way. Also the corn in the fields was a lot taller than I know it is back in Ohio. Some fields the corn had to have been 6’ tall. Along with beets there were some rhubarb fields. Our last SAG/rest stop was at the 56-mile point. It was so hot by then that we were all gathering alongside the luggage truck (we call this truck “Box”) on the shady side. The staff was great to also set up a canopy to stand under to eat our snacks. This was the last chance to get any water and it was more 25 miles into town. As we climbed away from the Snake River it was flatter and more open, and then some headwinds to boot. With the temperature in the upper 90’s by 1:00 I was really pushing as hard as I could to get in just as soon as possible. About 10 miles out of town I saw a guy watering his flowers in the yard and I pulled up and asked him to hose me off from head to toe. That was the best thing I could have done – so important to keep your bodies core temperature down to avoid heat exhaustion. Nancy and I rode in together the last 10 miles and she was still talking about the hot dog she has wanted for the last four days! I knew where a Dairy Queen was in Ontario—just past the motel. We passed up the motel and went right over to the Dairy Queen. We were so hungry! When we stop at places we people always start asking questions – where we are going, where did we start? They can hardly believe it when we tell them where we are cycling to New Hampshire! There are 20 of us that are over 60 years old on this trip. We are a tough bunch of oldies but goodies!

I was so whipped and felt so wind-blown when I got to my room I couldn’t get into the cool shower fast enough. Since we cannot get an Internet connection here I treated myself with a 45-minute cap nap before Route Rap at 5:00 PM. We were meeting outside and the last two riders pulled in right at the star. Within a few minutes one of the riders, Barry, fell down. There was a rush for ice, and water for him. He was taken down with dehydration and heat exhaustion. 911 were called. He should be all right; they’ll give him IV’s of fluids and electrolytes. But it is scary how dangerous the heat can be if you don’t do the right things out there. We were again instructed on important things to do to keep our cool.

We ate at the Sizzler Steak House across the street. Besides the big salad bar we could have steak, chicken or Halibut fish. Plenty of food. Amazing how famished we all are. We are burning a heck of a lot of calories! I drink about 4-5 bottles of water every day starting as soon as I finish my ride and through out the evening. I even wake up at night and drink a few glasses of water. Tomorrow we head for Boise and our first rest day will be Tuesday. Everyone is looking forward to that. I emailed a Chiropractor in Boise who is certified in doing Active Release Therapy asking if I could get in for an appointment on the rest day. He will make sure that I don’t have any muscle tightness that would keep me from feeling my best on the bike. I want to also get in a massage if possible. I can’t remember the place I went to the last time I was there in 2001, but will search the phone book. There are a couple of good bike shops in Boise too – and I want to get to those too. I need some different water bottles. The ones I brought along are these heavy clear plastic bottles and they sometimes rattle in the water bottle cages. I’m going to look for something different.

I found out that those black and white birds that I see around here are called Magpies. I have been seeing a lot of Kill Deer birds too. They get all excited if you come near their nests. They build their nests on the ground sometimes right along side the road. Their eggs are the same color as the stones they lay them in. We lost an hour today – entering a new time zone, leaving Pacific Time Zone, entering Mountain Time zone.

Road Kill: 2 baby skunks, 1 glove, 1 squirrel

Bananas: 3 ½ Just keep eating them, Sara!