andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Over Mt. Hood to Portland!

Joe enjoying the hammock in Gresham that night

Mt. Hood! We came pretty close to it

That title is actually quite misleading though, as the pass over Hood was dissappointly easy and I have yet to be in Portland, we're staying in the suburb of Gresham.  The ride was great up next to the mountain, and coming way back down to good ol sea level.  Dinner was miraculous, with ice cream and apple juice, can't beat that!  A special thanks to Noah's parents for supplying the chocolate cake and fruit salad as well.

I started the morning with a slow packing of my bin, since I had taken it all apart to organize and clean.  Sleeping the night in the hammock (picture of that setup from last post) worked great, and it packs up in 2 minutes, quicker than rolling and deflating the thermarest!  Our awesome awesome hosts in Maupin had a wonderful spread of breakfast for us, and I ate lotsss for what had been hyped to be a challenging day.  I filled my camelbak for the first time in awhile, and am glad I did.

After our route meeting, and 20 seconds of dancing to no music that I time every morning, and our chant to Paige, I took off with Mark and Dave.  Jesse forwent riding with Alyson and was looking to ride fast for the first time in weeks, so he caught up with us.  On the climb out of the valley, we lost Dave unfortunately to a mechanical I think, and passed just about the whole group up the climb.  Its fun to start at the back and be able to feel the progress passing people haha.  If the trip lasted another few months though...who knows and I might be the one getting passed, the improvement of other riders has been awesome to watch.

After getting out of the valley it was pretty much flat as we approached the foothills.  Into the pine forest and we went up, gradually for a little while.  All the time we were wondering when the climb would start.  To our suprise, we saw a sign desisnating that we had ascending a pass of 4000ft...I didn't notice that much uphill.  And then we went down, and lunch was early at 37 miles.  Zach had missed lunch so Mark and I went after him with a bunch of food, but after only a little bit more climbing...we went back down.  Signs for a 5 mile downgrade of 6% and the fact we were right at the side of the mtn meant we were done climbing, and that was anticlimatic.  But the descent was awwwesome, we went down forever!

I thought we'd went down below sea level haha so was suprised to see we were still at 1500ft, and we kept going down.  Eventually we made it to Sandy, and made a stop at the very famous Joe's Donuts.  Two of the best glazed donuts I've ever had melted in my mouth and I got a root beer float for $1!

It was rolling from there, and it must be the low elevation cuz we pretty easily cruised, without tailwind, at 24mph up and down the hills all the way here.

At our host in Gresham, we got spoiled again with lots of great food, soda and such when we got here.  And yeah dinner was good, and now were gonna go out in Gresham.  I'm on a hot streak with hammock, check out todays spot haha.  (I think the pictures go at the top from the phone though).

Thanks for reading, tomorrow we got to Portland proper to build and brewery!

Eastern Oregon

So these are the towns I need to write about...but I only got to tonight's really.  If I'm feeling ambitious maybe ill write later, but enjoy anyway ha.

Unity

John Day

Dayville and my 21st!

I slept up in the sanctuary and they didn't find me to wake me up right before breakfast which was nice.  When I woke up, the first thing I told Aileen was how mature I felt now that I was 21 years old.  It was a really short day on the bike, which I rode how they had decorated it, although it got really hot and stayed unbearably so inside at the host.  in town, I exercized my newfound rights, by the river and it was a lot of fun.

I slept in the kitchen which was cooler and so got a refreshingly good nights sleep.

Fossil

One sentence: beautiful desert valley, huge awesome melting climb, music at dinner, and sleeping in a real bed!

Maupin

Today we started out a tad later, waking at 6 and I won the rock paper scissors face-off to drive to the church.  It was only like 5 blocks, but still the first time behind a wheel in two months.  Really wasn't that exciting though.  The best part was that when we turned on Tim's radio we got to jam to "Dancing Queen" for that minute and a half! Breakfast was pancakes and scrambled eggs, everything I could ask for.

Leaving town we hit the first climb within a mile, and although I was already with the lead group, I felt great and took off.  Flying up the hill, I was adapting "I'll Fly Away" in my head to I'll Climb Away and my legs didn't tire all the way up.  At one point it switched back to where I could see people below me and I shouted to them haha.  At the top was one of the ladies I had talked to the night before who did international relief work and had Kristen and Alyson for the night, taking pictures.  I stopped and chatted with her for awhile more, and waited for the others.  They got there and then down the hill we went together, and it was a sweet dowhill.  By the bottom it was just Will G and I, before long though we were going up again.  The second climb seemed to last forever, and after awhile Tio got a flat.  I waited with him, and took the tiny villanous sharp rock out of his tire.  Mark passed us outta nowhere, then Joe and Aileen and then Noah and Emily waited with us.

After he got it changed we all took off and I started cruisin, then it was just Noah and I.  It felt good flying up again, I could feel the first climb though.  Eventually we passed Joe and Aileen back, but knew Mark was long gone.  After what seemed to be like 12 miles of climbing, we reached a summit and stopped to stretch and wait for ppl.  When Aileen pulled up, she looked to horizon and out of the desert we could see giant Mt Hood rising above.  It was awesome and I don't know how we didn't notice.  The mountain appeared so huge and was all snow covered, out of the desert that as other caught up and we pointed, Tio most memorably just screamed "Good lord!!" haha.

Another sweet descent took us into the tiny town of Antelope and to lunch, where we had brown bag lunches complete with cold cuts from our hosts in Fossil!  I took off with Mark and Dave, and right out of lunch, up we went.  It ended up being just Mark and I, and at mile 40 we made the turn onto the Bake Oven.  From here, we could clearly see three giant white mountains...and couldn't tell which was Hood.  The Bake Oven was hot but downhill and tolerable.  We had heard of a massive climb at the end of the day, but as we grew closer the only mountain was that giant one, presumably Hood, and were going downhill still.  We approached the Descheutes River and its massive gorge, and before long took an incredible descent down to the river level and to Maupin.  The town was on the other side of the bridge and up the other side of the gorge a little, which I guess was the climb there but it was nothing, lame.  When we hit the steep descent, the hot air hit us literally like an open oven in the face.  It was suuper hot in town, and we debated ice cream but went to the host first.  Good thing we did, cuz they had root beer floats ready!! And tons of other snacks and goodies, and ac...heaven.  Dave was right behind us and before too long others started rollin in.

Tonight I then got to hammock, read, talk to Lauren, sort my bin for the final time and now blog wirelessly from the hammocl before bed! I don't feel much like doing the other posts on this little thumb keyboard right now tho haha, its finally cooled off and I'm gonna catch some shut eye before our big day tomorrow over the mtn and into Gresham (portland)!

Thorns?

Ontario, OREGON

Sixty-two miles after a rest day is nothing for us now, and so today was definitely an easier day.  My legs were sore, but after stretching at mile 15 I was all good.  A lot of farms on the way here, including the Idaho University's experimental ones which seemed...interesting.  We all waited for everyone at the state line, and with the two people we had met who were biking across the country for fun who were really cool, to take a state line picture with everyone in our last state!

Leaving the sign looked like a trainwreck though.  I forget again what they're called, but these little thorns gave just about everyone on the trip flat tires.  Mark, earlier, and flats in both tires at the same time! Somehow I managed to luck out, I think the record was Emma with three flats.  And then in town at McDonald's, Kristens tire did the weirdest thing ever, it got like pimples haha hard to explain but really crazy.  She managed to ride it to the host somehow before it got flat in the parking lot though.

Dinner tonight was spaghetti and salad, which was good and since then I've had time to talk to Lauren for a long time for the second night in a row which has been really nice.  Also got to take out and fix Raleigh's fork, read some of a book, and now blog! Although I've only got three hours to sleep...but I'm sure there will be more time to sleep when I'm not biking across the country.

84 miles tomorrow to Unity, thanks for reading!