Day 70: Maupin, Oregon: "Run to the Desert, You Will Be"

I don't think it's either 1) fair to you as readers or 2) possible to try and contain the last week of the trip into one post. As such, I've broken it down into a two-parter; appropriate, I feel, for a state that feels entirely like two different worlds.

The Oregon of the east is not the Oregon of my imagination. It is hot, dry, desolate, and, like all deserts, eerily beautiful, and full of folks living by simple means off of each others' kindness. The land is harsh, as evidenced not only by the heat, but the meanest little plants imaginable: goatheads. The scourge of Eastern Oregon's cycling community.

So you bought some sweet new tires to ride across the state, huh? Well that's cute. Prepare to burn through them all in one unforgiving afternoon. These little guys managed to puncture two of my tires, and the first time they did, it was literally 5 feet in front of the Oregon state sign. I was left to deal with that while everyone else rolled into our last state.

What was neat was, as that was happening, I shot the breeze with a father and daughter we met up with on the road who also happened to be cycling across the country. The daughter was named Beth, and she's a very spunky, enthusiastic cyclist and teacher. Her dad, who's name is unfortunately is escaping me, has been cycling for a very long time. In celebration of his upcoming retirement, he decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of cycling out to the west coast, and he brought his two daughters along for the ride. It's very cool to have exchanged stories and passions with them. Even if I'd just met them, I knew we'd been through a lot of the same things, and I knew we shared a spark of adventure.

After negotiating with the goatheads and two deflated tubes, I rolled into Ontario that night ready for rest from the heat and hazardous native plantlife. the Oregon of my imagination; the one of tall pine trees, mountains, and overcasted skies. But as it turns out that's only a very small portion of this state. The first 3/4s or so is all high desert; hot, dusty, colorful, beautiful in its desolation.

We had a maildrop in Ontario and I have to start by giving mad props to my mother for sending thirty pounds (!!!) of her ever-popular Kitchen Sink Cookies. They came right in between two long, hot days and immediately put the team's morale through the roof.

In Ontario that evening we concluded the first round of our grant discussions, in which the team reviews applications from various affordable housing organizations across the country to decide how to allocate the money we've raised. It's a really cool process. We get to hear about all of these exciting organizations and all of these awesome projects we have planned, and then we, all thirty-one strong-willed teammates, discuss and determine how to best distribute our monies. And we heard some great stuff! I remember there being a Habitat chapter, for example, that partners with the local highschool to help students get their shop class credit. meanwhile, they help people and learn about the affordable housing cause. There were several that wanted to set up a youth build day, and Portland, the chapter we're working with tomorrow, wants to make their next house totally green.

From Ontario we worked across the high desert of Eastern Oregon to the modest town of Unity, and I had an awesome day, in large part due to the man-to-man I had with Zach. We talked about college, about the adult life, about religion, about girls, about the universe, and I felt all the wiser with each word exchanged. We climbed over the hills in the dusty heat and admired the desert, which was made all the more awesome when we heard an actual eagle actually screech! just like in the movies!

Zach also had a hidden agenda. Without telling me he tightened the screws all day to where we were cranking at a very healthy pace. By lunch we had punched our way to the front group. By mile 60 we were well out in front, and Zach, without even making me aware, helped me bike out in front. I was the first in to our home for the night, and Zach congratulated me on getting the "Golden Jersey" for the day. I was inappropriately excited, I think in hindsight.

I have to say I really am starting to understand why people get excited about the sport. The psychology of it is just so...constructive. It's about challenging yourself, about pushing to see how far you can actually go and, in the process, discovering some very cool things about yourself and the world around you as you work across it. Folkss like Zach, Noah, Andy, Mark, Jesse Young, Emma, I really appreciate what they did for me on this trip because they not only have helped me become a better cyclist, but have been earnest in sharing their *passion* for the sport with me, which makes it go from being just physical work to being nothing short of spiritual.

My ego was further stroked when I was given the task to make dinner for the team that night. I made my chili, using a recipe I've been perfecting since the tender age of 10, and it was very well received. The quickest way to a Bike and Builder's heart is assuredly through their stomach.

After the chili dinner I was given some time to enjoy the desert twilight and the most beautiful lake I've seen in a long time. Let me say first off that I missed lakes a lot this summer. I love bodies of water, and in particular ones that are good for jumping into and swimming. Unity had just about the best one you could ask for. While we were riding Zach and I were skeptical. After all, it was blazing hot, and the most water we saw that entire ride was the drips coming out of my camelbak faucet. But lo! A mile outside of camp the desert landscape dropped off to reveal a beautiful lake. It was immensely out of place, but it was no mirage. It was real. So real. And that night, as I swam the shoreline, watching the sky turn from orange to green to deep purple, I thanked the BnB gods for the change of ace from the oppressive desert. Laura and I stood by the shoreline and threw rocks in, trying to see who could make the most satisfying splash, based on both size and sound. it seemed a bit arbitrary, considering Laura wouls just watch, listen, and then say "That was a good one" or "Nope. Not good." And yet I couldn't disagree with any of these judgments, though I question how legitimate her win was.

The night ended with a session of guitar-playing around the fire, and story-telling with two other young guys, Greg and Eli, which we met on *that* day's ride, who were also biking across the country. I guess no matter where you start from people agree Oregon's a great place to end in. They were much younger than Beth and her father. Much more wreckless. Eli was convinced, especially after he powered through the beer which he bought earlier in the day, that he could leave then and bike 200 miles during the night to make it to some festival that was happening the next day. We convinced him, eventually, that it would be more fun to stay at the site and sleep. And sleep we did.

From Unity we had a 50 mile ride to John Day, and spent much of the morning pondering the namesake of this town. John Day's name is everywhere around Eastern Oregon. It's on highway signs, on parks, on municipal buildings, on restaurants, and it was stirring up curiosity. Who was this mysterious figure? What had made him such a local hero?

Jesse Bright, Zach, and I, in our typical nerdy fashion, pondered the story of John Day and eventually came up with the makings of the greatest folk-tale ever told.

John Day was 20 feet tall if he was an inch.

John Day's father was two bears stacked on top of eachother, and his mother was a pine tree.

John Day once ate a baby. Three days later it came out totally unharmed, except that it had a three foot long beard.

Etc., Etc., Etc.

The town of John Day, in relation, was pretty modest. The ride to had a delicious huckleberry milkshake place. The town itslef didn't have much going on. A dairy queen. A bar. There was a museum to the rodeo but sadly we'd neither the energy to explore it nor the time, since I'd been roped into leading the bike clinic the church asked us to hold.

Derrick got Kristen and I to lead a clinic for the church because "You both are good with children". I have to say I wasn't immediately up for it, but once I was out in the parking lot giving a lecture to some 6 to 10-year-olds on biking signals my counselor instincts kicked in. I can't explain it, but I just have fun acting like a giant goofball in front of kids. It's fun to watch. Some of them think they can trip me up by making fun of me, you know, being that cool kid, but instead of resisting, I just act even more ridiculous. They don't know how to respond to a person who likes being considered strange.

So we talked about signals, about helmets, about riding in a line and communicating, and then we rode around the parking lot and played red light/green light until everyone felt they had learned something. I won't say I'm a terrific biker, nor a terrific builder, but I excel at public relations, and it was awesome being able to stand out and help the team with something.

From John Day there was a 30-mile ride to Dayville. I bursted out of the gate that morning and told myself, since it was a terrifically short ride, that I should try and finish it as quick as I can, for the sake of challenges. And for a while I was actually leading the pack and being pretty competitive about it. Eventually Jesse Young did catch up, with Jen Hock a few feet behind him, and I settled for riding with the ever-hilarious J-Hawk and learning about her life and her take on it.

Meanwhile, in the sleepy town of Dayville, population 70, there was not a whole lot to speak for. It wasn't the smallest town we'd stayed in. That award goes to Maybell. But it was an extremely close second. There was a church, a general store, and a restaurant which advertised a "free glass of water" for customers. There was also a parked, which we all napped in to kill time and wait for the rest of the team to roll into. When the church was finally opened up to us we took our napping operation inside, where it was at least shady, but the lack of ac provided little reprieve from the super intense heat. But what a great church! They've actually earned a reputation over the years as a haven for bikers passing through, and they had this awesome collection of letters, brochures, and photos from years' worth of bikers working through Dayville. Again, I guess a lot of people like ending hteir journey in Oregon. It becomes a sort-of bottleneck of great dreams and stories. We added our own by finishing up our grant discussions, and I'm really excited to see that our team's funds are going to such awesome projects. I don't think I can disclose which ones yet, but I think we have really made some great choices. Perhaps when I know I can tell people I'll follow up.

And I know I've already mentioned the heat a lot in this entry, but, seriously, that might have been the absolute hottest night of sleep in my life. We were all crammed into this tiny church. In the middle of the desert. In the middle of the summer. It was an oven. I was literally down to just my underwear on the coolest piece of hardwood I could imagine, and I would've gotten even more naked if I wasn't sure it would freak out the rest of the team. Eventually some folks got the brilliant idea of soaking rags and using those to at least keep your face from melting. I tried this and was finally comfortable enough to power down.

Following Dayville was a 70-miler to the town of Fossil, famous for, guess what? It's fossils! Not so much *cool* fossils, though. More like grass, leaves, things like that. Anyways, I guess they were proud enough to name the town after it, and the shirts they had with the town's name and unofficial mascot, a wooly mammoth, were indeed really really sweet.

the ride to Fossil was the prettiest piece of desert I've ever seen. Wide open fields full of sage brush with huge imposing canyon walls about a mile away on either side. We were working through the John Day Fossil Beds and the hummed with history and beauty. I rode a lot with Raleigh that morning and we had a really, *really* good talk. Raleigh is, simply put, a survivor. She's built to last, through any test, and her heart is in such a good place, wanting the best for everyone and the most out of life. She told me about a music festival she went to where she stayed with "Camp Lovelife", a community of hippies that looked after each other during the festival. She recounted that every time a hippie was lost, all they needed to do was shout "LOVE LIFE!" and, in response, the rest of the community within earshot would yell "LOVE LIFE!" back to help them find home. Naturally Raleigh and I, overwrought with the emotion of the winding down trip and the stark but beautiful landscape, wound up shouting LOVE LIFE to each other all through the rest of the ride, making an effort to hear it bounce off the canyon walls.

Right after lunch we met some ladies in front of a general store who were riding their motorcycles through the desert to see the painted canyons. They talked about their love for Portland and the surrounding area, and it got us all jazzed for the good times to come in the following days. We stocked up on water, and exchanged a good-bye and good luck to each other.

Following our run in with these ladies was a brutal climb. It was approximately 10 miles long, which is a challenge unto itself, but it was also baking hot. People were taking breaks in the shade to avoid heat exhaustion. For inexplicable reasons, though, I was feeling it, and cranked it up the mountain. I guess I'm cold blooded. Something about hot weather makes me feel active, makes me want to move, so I used that and, after cresting, enjoyed the same distance in sweet-sweet downhill as I rolled into the city of Fossil.

Understandably, I was exhausted, and purchased and pounded a half-gallon of chocolate milk while waiting in line for a cold, refreshing shower. After that shower there was talk of food and fossils and I mustered up the energy to hit the town. We passed a general store which was all kinds of quaint and filled with the kind of Americana that would grab my mom's attention for hours. I, however, was more fixated on the lime-green piano in front of the store with a simple sign that said "Play Me!". I obliged, and stumbled through a few songs in front of Jesse B and Kristen before a sweet old woman, seemingly out of no where, came along and talked about the piano with us. We invited her to play, and she cranked out, seemingly from simple muscle memory, a beautiful waltz. She told us about life in Fossil, about her family, and told us to be careful on the rest of the journey, while we exchanged a look to each other of surprise and adoration for this sweet, ancient, humble and talented woman who drifted off as silently as she'd drifted up to us.

We caught wind that there were beds on the edge of town where folks could go and break open rocks to find fossils and keep whatever they found, and Jesse was keen to check it out. I was all about this idea, and we had some fabulous "broments" of sifting through the rocks and taking hammers to ones with lots of promise, dancing for joy when we found a modest little blade of fossilized grass. Kristen got great pictures.

We were then treated to an amazing dinner provided by our host church. A picnic in a member's back yard. I was indeed starving, but my attention was entirely drawn to the small band of elderly bluegrass musicians sitting on the porch. I sat down and listened until I was invited to play along. I was handed a guitar and there was a delightful exchange across both the age-gap and the genre-gap. They taught me gospel and bluegrass, I taught them blues and rock, and we all had a marvelous time. And they were all such characters! A woman easily in her 80s in bright pink sneakers played the harmonica like it was her God-given duty. A heavy-set man with a winning smile strummed the guitar and got a huge kick out of the "energy" I brought to this group which had been playing together for decades at functons like this. Another older gentlemen in a fedora and a mighty mustache and suspenders wailed on the bass. He didn't say a word but I loved his style.

So we played and played and played until someone reminded me, about an hour later, that I had to eat and eventually leave their home. I crashed in a member's house with Andy and the Jesses and spent the final hours of the night teaching Andy how to play "Man of Constant Sorrow" to keep the bluegrass theme alive. We got really good at harmonizing, adding in the falsetto that makes that scene from O Brother so darn hilarious.

Our tour through the Oregon desert concluded with the next day's ride to Maupin. J-Hawk and I swept that day and I was grateful to be forced to slow down and enjoy the ride. After all, there weren't many left, and it was a beautiful day. A little rainy, but indeed beautiful. Working across the dusty Cascade foothills we admired the rock formations and the drama of the scene. Thunder echoed off the canyon walls for minutes. The sky, ripped up by the lightning, would cast these castle-looking formations in this stark white light. The gray rain clouds looked more like smoke rising off the orange Earth. It was quiet and wild and eerie and absolutely gorgeous.

Although for the entire ride that day I was struggling with some notable anxiety. Bakeoven flats, the final stretch of the route was, according to locals, not only deadly hot but infested with rattlesnakes. By the time we approached the turn, I had the image in my head of a road paved with snakes, with others hanging from the trees, clotheslining riders, jumping on us as we rode through, etc. I hate snakes. I don't know enough about them to know which ones are poisonous, so I just assume they all will kill me. A ride through "Snakeoven" as we came to call it did not sound appealing.

I rode between relief and dissappointment when all we saw as we rode across snakeoven was one measley dead rattlesnake. I couldn't help but think of my grandfather, a man who, in his youth, killed a vicious rattler which came after a group of kids he was looking after during his days as a camp counselor. He trapped it with a stick, took off the head, ate the meat, and kept the skin as a trophey to this very day.

In my head, I decided I was protected from the horrors of Snakeoven because of my grandfather's bravery. Had that rattler been allowed to live, his descendants would have perhaps deafened us riders with their noise as we rode across. At first we did hear pops everywhere but were relived to see tht these weren't snakes but instead just huge locusts. Nasty, yes, but not poisonous killing machines.

Turning off of Snakeoven we rolled into the town of Maupin, which was literally built into the canyon. We took some really fun downhill switchbacks down to the river, then climbed up the other side to our church. We were greeted with freshly-made root beer floats, and with a cozy set of buildings to spread out in and get cozy. Naturally I opted for the porch.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the finale to Road to Paradis(e)! For now I'm going to give my brain a bit of a break. It's amazing how much can happen in the middle of nowhere.