Day 3: Rowena to Tygh Valley

Woke up early and rode straight to The Dalles, which I still can't remember how to pronounce correctly. I stopped in at a coffee shop, made the blog posts I wrote earlier, and had my first conversation about riding across the country. It was consistent with the conversations I've had since - "Why would you do that?", "I know someone who does long bike rides", "I always wanted to do something like that", and "Wow, I could never do that". My responses are generally "Life circumstances made it convenient", "That's neat", "I'm lucky to have this option", and nervous laughter, respectively.

After the coffee shop, I rode up to Dufur and met my first travelers on the way. Our interaction was brief: I found out that their entire plan for the day was to make Dufur, only 13 miles but ~1400 feet up. I told them I was going to Tygh Valley, which was twice that distance and twice that climb. They were very impressed. I didn't tell them that I had made this plan without checking the elevation profile. Thanks to a delicious wrap from the coffee shop in Dufur, though, I did crawl along in low gears long enough to make it to Tygh Valley. I bought food for SOAK, convinced the gate staff that yes, I really did ride there on a bike, and got in. The details of SOAK are a separate post.

Here's a pun in Tygh Valley that I appreciated:

Here's a sign I was very happy to see, marking the end of my climbing for the day: