Cycle Oregon 2008, part the last...

At last we come to the closing days of this epic adventure. And the bike trip is almost over too. After the layover in Halfway to rest and recuperate from the grueling week up to that point (insert smiley here) it was time to saddle up for the trip to Wallowa Lake. Everyone in the mighty metropolis knew it would be a grueling day, but it was a choice of ride your bike or declare wussdom for all the world to see and go home. With the monetary investment involved going home was not an option so it was time to "go big" as the saying goes...

The first ten miles or so were a piece of cake. It was all downhill, following Pine Creek on its way to the Snake River. And even the first miles after we left the main highway weren't bad. We were climbing, winding our way up into the fragrant forest of pines and other evergreens, but it was shaded for the most part and still on the cool side. And the pavement was pretty decent, too...

It was eighteen miles of climbing to the first summit, but it kind of went in stairsteps, so one had a bit of a break once in a while. What I found entertaining as I got closer to the top was one gentleman I passed (yes, I do occasionally find someone I can pass) who was looking at the map and told me, "We're almost to the top. Only 2oo more feet of climbing." What he didn't say, or possibly didn't know, was that it would take nearly four miles more of pedaling to climb that 200 feet...

About a half mile below the top of this particular climb I decided it was time for a snack break, having cached a banana in my handlebar bag earlier. Unfortunately for my statistics for the day, I managed to bump a button on my bike computer which put it in "Set" mode, so that when I did finally make it to the top and got to swoop down to lunch, my speed was never recorded. At lunch I finally figured out how to get the silly thing back in normal mode, but that descent was never recorded...

After lunch was the continuation of the downhill that took us to lunch, but after only a mile or two we got the thrill and privilege of starting the second long climb of the day, the climb to Salt Creek Summit. This climb is ten miles of up. No stairsteps, no relief, just up. Needless to say, it took a while to get to the top. The cool part about that climb was the food at the rest stop at the top. Peaches! Really juicy, sweet peaches! And watermelon! And Oreos! Life was definitely good...

Zoom! Downhill again, then a left turn, then Curses! Another climb! But this one was very much short compared to the others, and was soon conquered, then it was mostly downhill into Joseph. In Joseph ET phoned home, because I figured that there would be no cell service at the lake. Cheryl was glad to hear that I survived the day. I did manage to take a picture across the lake of the CO community...


At the lake I found our camp, got my tent set up, and went to find the troops, who were, naturally enough, in the beer garden. Dinner was devoured shortly then it was time for the bike rodeo. There was a big buck wandering around snitching food from unattended plates and investigating the stage while we were waiting for announcements and the bike rodeo. Once again, I pulled a stupid and left my camera in my tent with my backpack, so no pictures of the buck...

The next day I decided to ride the "layover loop" to Enterprise. It was really nice weather, nice pavement, good lunch, and just an all-around good day on a bike. For some reason, I started taking pictures of barns along the way. They were neat looking, so maybe that was the reason. Here's one of them...
The lunch stop at Enterprise was very comfy, green grass to sit on, live music, that sort of thing. A group of enterprising (pun intended) young people who looked to be about nine or ten had a bike wash going, but I was, once again, photographically incompetent and didn't get a picture of them. I did, however, get a picture of the general hubbub...


Wallowa Lake is a beautiful lake so I couldn't help but stop for a photo op on my way back to camp...


When I got back to the lake, Mike, Todd, and Craig flagged me down at the bridge over the inlet stream. "You gotta see this!" There were salmon all over the place, heading upstream to spawn. The little red things in the picture with the arrows pointing at them are fish. Really. Trust me on this one...

That night's dinner was salmon. How appropriate, eh? I for one do not consider salmon to be one of my favorite dishes so I suggested to my campmates that we go to town for steak. A piece of medium rare beef seemed to me like just the thing to end the week on, so we all hopped the shuttle into Joseph to the Stubborn Mule. Let me say that I heartily endorse the Stubborn Mule as a place for dinner...

The next day was the grand finale. We began with what was essentially a downhill free for all, in which I found myself averaging 18 mph. Which proves that it was indeed downhill. Lunch was in Wallowa and even at 10 in the morning, pulled pork makes for good eats. The "lunch" line was long, but the food was worth the wait...

Minam Summit was the only big climb for today. Hearsay has it that Minam Summit is 5 1/2 miles, and I won't argue. By this time it was getting toasty out, so I was glad I had my Camelbak. I just geared down and settled in spinning. One of the interesting points for me was a lady I passed just after her front tire blew. Loudly. Going uphill! I've heard of tires blowing on downhills due to excessive braking, but uphill? Unheard of!

From the top, it's possible to see quite a ways, and I did remember to take a picture from there...


My brother and sister in law, who live just outside Island City, met me at the finish line. So did people with chocolate milk and some really yummy cookies. We met up with Cheryl at long-term parking and found my bag. It was time to head home, with a stop at Susan's for a shower and Subway in La Grande for food...

So another Cycle Oregon has come and gone. This year's ride has been described as "a vacation instead of a death march". It was much easier than last year, which is good, because I was much less prepared than last year. The weather was great, the food was good, the company was fantastic, overall it was a great ride. And once again I want to thank Mike, Todd, Craig, Larry, Colleen, and Jerry for letting me tag along and be part of their group, even though I'm "the fat kid from down the block who wants to play and can't always keep up". You guys are the greatest...

Cycle Oregon 2008, part the third: Halfway

The proverbial writer's block sets in at the most unexpected times, or it does to me anyway. That's why it's been so long since my last post. Just when one thinks that one will accomplish great works of literature, suddenly the mind goes blank and the creative juices dry up until the writer's brain is as barren of words as the Sahara Desert is of ferns and mosses. So to speak...

Then, just when you least expect it, a veritable torrent of words forms in the brain, all clamoring to get out...

So now, at last, the saga of this year's Cycle Oregon continues...

I won't comment on the weather from here on out except to say that it was beautiful the whole week. Anyone who is so meteorologically inclined can probably look up that week on the National Weather Service website and find out daily temps, etc...

The ride from Baker to Halfway was relatively uneventful, for me at least. There was a police traffic stoppage at the bottom of Flagstaff Hill outside of Baker, because, as rumor had it later, someone tangled wheels with someone else at the top of the hill and tried to make an impression on a passing RV. Didn't hurt the RV at all, and I heard that the cyclist was mainly just scuffed up. Apparently his guardian angel had a hand on his jersey collar...

The traffic stoppage made for some very nice, traffic-free riding for quite a while, which was nice, considering that the Richland Highway is the only means of getting from Baker to that part of the world and is generally on the busy side...

The first rest stop held a couple of photo ops. The first was a really well done rendition of the classic T-bucket street rod...

The second was the presence of Billy Bear. The story of Billy has been told elsewhere, so let us just suffice to say that Billy was once an alcoholic bruin and is now on the wagon. And occasionally on the blue rooms...

The ride down the Powder River to Richland was a lark, punctuated by one relatively short climb just when the day was starting to heat up. There is a nice wide turnout at the top of that hill where Dance Hall Road takes off and goes around the hill which made for a dandy "stop and catch my breath" place. From there it was a really nice flight down to lunch...

At this point I would like to interject a brief discourse on the Cycle Oregon food. Apparently there are those in the cycling world who feel that since they paid their money that the food should be catered strictly to their tastes and to purgatory with anyone else. Consequently there has been a good bit of bitching about the food on the Cycle Oregon Forum in the aftermath of what I consider to be a great vacation. I personally wasn't one of the prima donna's doing the bitching. I like the food on Cycle Oregon, except for the Friday salmon, but I don't care for salmon anyway. Lunch at Richland was a chicken salad wrap with mayo, which I found to be delicious. "Too much mayo before a climb" lamented some later. To which I say, "Get over it! They're doing the best they can!"

Rant mode off...

After lunch was the climb up Halfway Hill. This is a relentless climb which I am not ashamed to say occasioned a couple of rest stops, er, photo ops before the top.

The view from the curve at the top of the first big climb up Halfway Hill is great. You can see Richland, and part of Oxbow Reservoir (arrow in the picture) and a long ways across the hills. But then you get back on your bike, and start spinning again. Then came the glorious flight to the bottom. I would have gladly paid one of the sag drivers to take me back to the top so I could make that trip again...

I had decided ahead of time that the layover day in Halfway would be a true layover day. No biking, just working on my beached whale imitation. The rest of the gang decided to ride to lunch, which was downhill going and uphill coming back, except for Mike, who bravely got together with a bunch of the other guys from Boise for a hammerfest all the way to Hells Canyon Dam and back. Mike is a true road animal, but when he got back he looked thoroughly toasted. He was muttering something about headwinds and climbs...

Made me glad I didn't go. Instead I did some laundry and just generally goofed off all day. After all, I was on vacation...

This was my impromptu clothesline...

And on an entirely unrelated-to-cycling note, there was an Elvis sighting in the beer garden...

Cycle Oregon 2008, part the second...

Day 2 dawned bright and sunny once again, and a trifle chilly. This was the day of the first actual climb of CO 2008, the trip up Catherine Creek on the way towards Medical Springs, which is the gateway to Pondosa and the Eagle Creek drainage. Or at least that's the way my family thinks of it. Whenever we go to Eagle Creek, we go past Pondosa and through the microdot metropolis of Medical Springs. Pondosa is the site of a former saw mill...

The first miles of the route followed Catherine Creek. It was mildly uphill and extremely scenic. Unfortunately this was one of those days on which I forgot that there was a camera hanging from the hip belt of my Camelbak, otherwise I'm sure I could have gotten some very cool pictures...

Somewhere along the way I was passed by Matt and Susan from Corvallis. When I said "Hello" to Susan, she decided to slow her pace enough to ride alongside of me for a while so we could visit, which we did to the first rest stop, after which she vanished into the crowd. Thanks for making the miles go a little faster, Susan...

The actual climb up to what I believe is called Catherine Creek Summit is only about 2 1/2 miles, but for somebody whose mileage has not included a lot of hills this summer, it was the first true challenge of the day. And of course I was over-dressed for such activity. About a mile up, I decided that even if I encountered frost bite on the way down the hill to Medical Springs, I had to shed some clothes. It was either that or expire in a puddle and puff of smoke, similar to what happened to the wicked witch in the The Wizard of Oz, leaving a perfectly good bike to lay and decay alongside the road. "I'm melting..." Besides, as everyone is so fond of saying, "This is a ride, not a race"...

On the road once more, I had finally struck a comfortable cadence and was making my way steadily up the road, punctuated by numerous calls of "On your left" and even more numerous passers whose first indication that they were passing me was the swish and click of tires and derailleurs (sp?). But we won't go there...

Then about a half mile from the top of the hill disaster struck, in a manner of speaking. My lovely wife claims that I can't pass up a rest area when we're traveling. I had of course availed myself of the blue rooms at the last rest stop, but I had also consumed a rather large container of fruit juice at the rest stop in addition to the big cup of coffee I took back to camp with me after breakfast. And of course gaspingly slurping from my Camelbak as I pedaled. As I was chugging slowly up the road, it occurred to me that yonder pine tree looked exceedingly thirsty and that it was my duty to do what I could to assuage that condition. In other words, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to pee, and that big tree looked like the perfect place. Unfortunately stopping totally ruined my cadence so I just kind of thrashed my way on up to the top of the hill after this impromptu rest stop...

The flight down into Medical Springs was much shorter time-wise than the climb to the summit, but it was a great deal more fun. I think my top speed for that stretch was somewhere in the vicinity of 40 miles per hour. I pedaled across the valley, up another short hill, across the north end of Keating Valley, then slogged my way to the top of the ridge that separates it from Baker Valley. From there it was a swooping flight to the valley floor and an easy pedal to the lunch stop...

At the lunch stop I ran into Kathy Orr, who works for the Baker City Herald newspaper. After the usual "How long have you been doing this? I didn't know you did this!" conversation she told me to "Come find me before you leave. I want to take some pictures of you." Which I did, and one of the pictures ended up on the back page of the Herald and proves once again that even homely folks can get their picture in the paper if you know the right people...

The rest of the trip into Baker was relatively uneventful, except for the "clunk clunk" of my tires crossing the expansion cracks in the frontage road for about five miles, which gets somewhat uncomfortable after while and are the reason I rarely ride that stretch of road if I can keep from it...

Highway 30 led to Hughes Lane which led to the Leo Adler Parkway which led to my only flat tire of the whole trip. I was bopping along on the Parkway, having a grand old time, when my front tire suddenly went "Pfft!" and the air that had been holding me up departed for parts unknown. The ensuing squirming of my front wheel quickly brought back Brett Fleming's crash avoidance lecture the night before in Union and I managed to stop safely. I could see the camp just across the mint field beside me so I decided that if I was going to fix a tire, I was going to do it comfortably, so I hoisted my bike up onto the back tire and strolled into camp, on the Parkway trying to look nonchalant...

That afternoon there were no shower lines! This was undoubtedly due to the majority of riders having taken the long option. I'd just ridden that route the previous Monday, so I didn't go that way...

At this point I have to mention one of the baggage handlers, aka high school kids, who went above and beyond the call of duty. When I first got to the BHS sports complex, this kid about five feet tall, with glasses, asked me if I wanted help finding my bag. I told him my rider number, and we gave things a cursory onceover. My bag didn't just reach out and grab either one of us, so I told him I would go find where my traveling companions were camped and come back. His reply was that he would keep looking...

When I got back to the baggage area he immediately came up to me and told me he'd found my bag and would I like him to deliver it for me. Thinking that was an excellent suggestion I pointed him toward our area and went and got my bike. Now remember, this bag is huge. Really huge. I think I probably could have stuffed him inside and zipped it up and he would have been perfectly comfortable. And he had about 1/4 of a mile to go with it, which he did, no complaints. When we got where we were going, I handed him some dollars and said, "Give this to your coach." Then I handed him a few more and said, "Pocket this. You went above and beyond." His smile was more than worth the few bucks it cost me...

That night was the movie Blazing Saddles on the big screen after announcements, and the next day was the trek to Halfway...

I survived another one, part the first...

Cycle Oregon, that is. I didn't have nearly the miles in that I should have had for the year, but then again this year's CO, cleverly titled "The Wild-Wheeled West", wasn't as hard as last year, either. This time we only did mountains on Day 3, from Baker to Halfway, and Day 5, from Halfway to Wallowa Lake, and Day 7, from Wallowa Lake to Elgin. But I digress...

Getting to the start of this year's CO was harder than actually doing the ride. Not physically, of course, but mentally and stressfully (is that a word when used in this context?). The day before CO started off well enough. I got my stuff loaded into my pickup Friday morning so I could go to Pendleton and do some stuff for Brett at his new leather shop. Of course I had to go to Pendleton by way of Mount Vernon, which those of you who know Oregon know is quite the scenic route. For those who don't know Oregon, let's just say I went about 200 miles and three hours out of my way. The things dads do for their kids. The reason I went through Mount Vernon was to pick up a couple of custom horse bridle type bits for Brett to put in his shop...

Unfortunately things went suddenly downhill from there. I'd decided to go back to Union to my dad's to spend the night before going on to Elgin for the start of CO on Saturday, but when I went to start my pickup, she no startee. Period. Crank, crank, crank, but no vroom noise. So that night I ended up at the Pendleton Travelodge, with the idea that I'd find a mechanic on Saturday morning. Yeah, right. Fortunately, Brett knows a guy who is a mechanic, and so my pickup found a temporary home. I finally got it back the following Sunday...

But once again, I digress. This is not meant to be a tale of my woes but instead a chronicle of my adventures on Cycle Oregon 2008...

Brett hauled me, my bike, and my bag over the mountains to Elgin. The start of CO was at Elgin High School. I arranged for my bag to be delivered there, hopped on my trusty Roubaix (which I believe is French for "a few days down the road your butt is really gonna be aching") and made my leisurely way to the check in area in the high school gym. At check-in I ran into my buddy Dave E., who is an annual CO volunteer and who made the transition from pedestrian to official cyclist quick and painless. Then I ventured outside looking for Todd's garbage can...

A garbage can may at first glance seem to be rather an odd thing to look for in relation to a bicycle trip. However, this particular garbage can is special. To the best of my knowledge, it has never held an ounce of trash, at least not on purpose. Instead, it serves as Todd's luggage. When I get into each camp at the end of a day of riding, I look for Todd's garbage can. Once I find it I know I have the right camp...

Todd's garbage can, his and Mike's tents and another tent basically identical to Todd's, were actually easy to find. I went and got my own mongo sized bag and drug it over to the tents and proceded to set up my own little piece of campster heaven. My tent is just big enough for my bag and my ThermaRest pad, and of course yours truly. And that's it. Makes it easy to set up. Once my home away from home was set, I beat feet for the traditional Widmer Brothers beer garden, where I was relatively certain I'd find Todd and Mike and the new guy, whose name turned out to be Craig, and who turned out to be just as much fun to hang with as those two...

Mike is on the left, Todd is in the middle, and Craig is on the right. This was Craig's first CO, but I don't think it'll be his last...

Before too long, Larry and Colleen and Jerry and Betty arrived and made our little company complete. Betty stayed with us for a while, but then she had to go home, thereby abandoning me to the company of evil companions who forced me to drink Widmer Brothers beer and Pendleton Whiskey and Crown Royal during the course of the coming week. My poor arms were nearly twisted from the sockets...

Day one dawned bright and sunny, and chilly. I was up with, well, not exactly the chickens, but I was up somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00, which is a good thing, because it usually takes me a while to make it through the blue room lines and the breakfast lines and back to my tent to actually put on bike clothes, take down the tent, and etc. in time to get my chubby hiney out on the road at a reasonable hour. This year I went the whole week without setting my alarm clock, for which my campmates were thankful I'm sure, and I still managed to get on the road by 7:30ish every day except the layover day at Wallowa Lake. But I hadn't planned on leaving camp before 10 that day anyway...

For the uninitiated, let me do some quick explainating regarding the blue room line comment. Cycle Oregon as an organization does its best to make sure we have all the amenities. You know, a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to drink beer, etc. Then, once one does all of these things, one needs a place to, well, pee. Enter the blue rooms. These quaint plastic shanties are variously known as Porta Potties, honey shacks, that stinkin' ... You get the picture. In the case of Cycle Oregon, they are, in my limited experience, invariably blue, therefore the name blue room. And again invariably, if the time comes when you really have to go, there will be a line. Probably a long line. If you don't really have to go that bad, every one for a quarter of a mile will be empty...

So anyway, there I was, pedaling up the highway that leads out of Elgin toward the turnoff that would take us up and over Punkin Ridge, down to Summerville, up to Hunter Road, and so on and so forth. The ride up the creek was a bit on the brisk side, which made me a bit thankful that I had, once again, slightly overdressed. At least I wasn't shivering the way some of those who had ventured forth wearing only shorts, socks, shoes and a jersey were shivering...

We had a small climb to do, during which my legs were whispering minor obscenities at me, but I just geared down until they shut up and spun my way up. It was a beautiful day to be on the road on a bike and there were hordes of colorfully dressed people of all descriptions zipping hither and yon. Or something like that...

At my brother's house on Hunter Road I stopped with the idea that I would say hello and possibly use their bathroom, even though I had made a blue room visit at the rest stop a few miles back. I found that there was no one home but Tonka, who is a very large dog of indeterminate breed who is normally friendly. However, on this particular day he had decided to take his house guarding duties seriously, and informed me in no uncertain terms that he would eat my legs off if I ventured any closer. Considering that I needed my legs more than usual for the next few days, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and went on down the road to my sister in law Susan's house, which actually wasn't that much further. There was someone home there who was much more friendly...

A couple of years ago, I bought a camera small enough that I can carry it on the hip belt of my hydration pack, and whip it out and take candid shots along the way. Amazingly enough, it almost takes better pictures that way than it does if I stop and concentrate. Hence the following photo of a field of sunflowers alongside Hunter Road...
Lunch was in Cove, at about the 35 mile mark or somewhere thereabouts. Of course I had dawdled and meandered through rest stops and blue room lines until I arrived at lunch at, amazingly enough, almost lunch time. There I ran into Don B., Sue, Beth, Joe, and Patrick. I hadn't seen Don since last year, Sue, Beth, and Joe since my first CO in 2005, and I had never met Patrick, but we were soon all acquainted or reacquainted and I managed to kill almost an hour there. A very pleasant hour, I might add. Then it was off to Union, with a very nice tailwind to push me along. Once again I found the trash can and made myself at home...

Once I got my tent set up, I went over to Dad's house to borrow his shower. I try to take advantage of any normal house type showers that I can, because the alternative is the shower trucks that CO has along to keep us smelling sweet. Not that the shower trucks are necessarily bad, but that a real shower is so very good. Dad's shower came with a price, however. After I got out, I had to do some remanufacturing of his computer, which was making funny noises. I was pretty sure it was his old hard drive, which had been superceded by a brand new one recently, complaining about being left out in the cold. It turned out I was right. By then it was dinner time. Mom fixed tacos, which I ate several of. Obviously "starving wolf syndrome" was beginning to set in. After dinner I went back to camp, found the troops in the beer garden, went to dinner with them, then it was off to beddy bye to get ready for the pedal to Baker by way of Catherine Creek and Medical Springs...

As ready as I'm going to get...

For Cycle Oregon, that is. Yesterday I had Cheryl drop me and my bike off in Baker City on her way to Halfway to the fair. I had ambitions toward doing a 30 or so mile ride around Baker Valley, then riding home, which would give me between fifty and sixty miles. Little did I know...

On my way out Pocahontas Road I suddenly had the idea to call Kim and Janie, my local riding buddies, and see if they were home, so I stopped and dug my cell phone out of my backpack. They were indeed home. Unfortunately for him, Kim was on call (he's a vet) but Janie was more than happy to get in some miles. "Let's ride to North Powder!" was her reply.

"We can do that," I answered. Silly me...

I rode on to their house. By this time I had about 11 miles on the odometer. It was chilly even while riding and I had several layers on. Actually several too many. While Janie finished getting ready to go, I shed the top layer on my upper half. Much better.

By the time we left their house the wind was kicking up more than it had been and it was shaping up to be a bit of a headwind. Wow, did it ever...

By the time we got back to Pocahontas Road, which pointed straight into the wind, the wind had started to become serious. Just past the old Pocahontas School site we saw Janie's friends John and Cindy coming out of their driveway for a short ride. We rode with them to the Rock Creek turnoff. I had a nice visit with John, who is retired from the Forest Circus. Janie and I went on toward North Powder while they turned up Rock Creek Lane.

By this time, the wind was getting really into its playful mode. I was pulling, and managing to keep my cadence up most of the time by doing a virtuoso performance on my shifters. The wind would drop a little, then kick back up. Some of the gusts made me feel like I was starting to go backwards. Interesting feeling. Janie stayed tucked in behind me most of the time. She did get out and pull for a couple of miles, but since she is only about half my size drafting behind her wasn't the rest break it could have been though she did her best. It did help though. On the leg back toward Baker, I decided that the wind had to be at least 20 mph because I had to be going that fast to get any breeze in my face...

Then, we made the turn back toward Baker. Ah! The joys of a tailwind. I led off and suddenly found myself pedaling easily and a glance at the bike computer told me we were cruising along at just under 25 mph. Cool!!! We made the 8 miles to Haines in just about 20 minutes. More Cool!!!

Janie cut off back toward home when we got to Wingville Road, and I went on into Baker, hit Subway for a foot long Prime Rib and Pepper Jack cheese sub with all the veggies and a double helping of blue Powerade from the soda machine then headed for Durkee myself, anticipating the long downhills from Pleasant Valley to Durkee...

Ride stats: 76.3 miles
16.9 average mph
Max speed 41.64 mph
Just over 4 hours ride time

So it appears that the horsepower is mostly there, so the engine is pretty much ready, but the engine mount , as my friend Don Bolton so aptly put it, is a little shaky. The legs are fine, mabye a little tired this morning, but the sit bones are more than a tiny bit tender. I don't think I'll get on the bike today...

"Crash miles"

...or how I decided that maybe I'm not quite as bad off as I thought I might be...

So yesterday after work I took my trusty mountain bike out on the road for some more "last minute miles" before Cycle Oregon gets here. That won't be too long from now, as CO starts September 6th. Or at least check-in does. We don't actually start riding until the 7th. I've been thinking that I really need to get in some miles, and I was right, so I've been doing them on my heavy mountain bike...

Yesterday was 41.5 miles, which I actually did in about the same time as I did 35 miles last week on the same road, so maybe it's paying off. I looked at my training diary last night, and with trainer miles, CROC ride miles, a few miles on the treadmill, and my mountain bike miles, I have 956 miles for the year. I'm going to be doing some more riding on the mountain bike, so maybe I'll survive this year's Cycle Oregon after all...

A friend has told me that this year's CO is "laid back enough that you should be able to ride yourself into shape by day 5" which is the day we ride from Halfway to Wallow Lake via the backcountry. I sincerely hope he's right. Nonetheless, I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of praying along the way...

Night shooting in Baker City

This video may not look cowboy, but for you western movie aficionados, this video will remind you of something...



So now on with the show...

Shanghai Noon, aka Clint, and I went to the Vigilantes of Virtue annual night shoot and BBQ the evening of July 26th. It was a blast in more ways than one. I of course was shooting Frontier Cartridge loads, or black powder, which made for some rather smoky scenarios, and the occasional fireball...


This gent goes by the alias of Bullett. He was making plenty of smoke with his shotgun, eh? The pictures below are of me. I think I contributed my share to the pollution...
The baby fireball in the picture below came from my Henry rifle...
But this is the cool, or should I say hot one. This is my shotgun shooting FFg Goex real black powder. Note the streamers of fire...
Shooting at night with black powder makes for some interesting pyrotechnics. A lot of the shooters were using black that night just because of the fire and smoke. It looks pretty neat under the lights...

Making up for lost time...

So here I am, almost a month down the road since my last post. How time flies when one is having fun. Let's see, since my last post I've gone to two cowboy shoots, a video cattle auction in Winnemucca, and a family reunion in Sisters, OR...

First off was the first of the cowboy shoots, which was the annual night shoot in Baker. I have some pictures to post on that one, so I'll write it separately later, even though it happened before everything else...

Then there was the video auction. Our calves sold on Thursday, so we (Cheryl, Clint, Jean, and I) drove down to Winnemucca on Wednesday. We had dinner at the Martin Hotel, which is famous for its Basque grub, and played a few machines. I think I came out about $40 or so ahead for the couple of days we were there, playing penny machines. The calves did okay on the auction. Not great, but okay...

We left Winnemucca at about 8AM on Friday, drove back to Durkee, hooked Jean's travel trailer to our pickup, and drove to Sisters, getting there about 8:20 PM. Long day...

The following Wednesday, which was, incidentally, last Wednesday, Clint and I packed up the guns, gun cart, etc. in his little car and drove to Nampa to Cheryl's cousin Bill's house. This would be our headquarters for competing in the Idaho State Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting. Neither Clint nor I have been practicing especially, so we were there more because it's fun than because we figured we'd win anything.

Thursday was the warmup match. Clint did well; I ended up somewhere in the vicinity of 56th out of 63 shooters. I think I may have beaten 2 kids and some old men and old ladies. I hoped to do better in the main match, which started on Friday. After all, hope springs eternal. However, by the time that the smoke cleared, so to speak, the springs were getting pretty wimpy. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Thursday was hot. The Black's Creek Range is in an old gravel pit. A very deep gravel pit. The sun bakes down on the gravel and with the berms there ain't a whole lot of breeze stirring there most of the time. Fortunately the sponsoring club, the Oregon Trail Rough Riders, had almost literally tons of water in coolers in the shooting bays, and folks were sucking down lots of hydration...

A video company from Nampa or Boise or one of those places had some mirrors set up so they could take videos and pictures of the shooters from the front without actually standing down range where the lead bees could buzz around their ears. It made for some interesting photo ops.
That's Clint on the left and a gentleman who goes by the name of Fernley on the right...

Thursday was also side match day. I tried my hand at long range pistol caliber rifle shooting with my 1860 Henry, but to no avail, although I did have that steel chicken standing out there at about 100 yards surrounded. It was so confused it just stood in one place and watched the bullets kick up rocks and dirt all around it...

Friday was equally as hot, if not hotter. It was also the first day of the main match. I managed to have enough of a brain fart to miss two shots at a huge and very close target on the first stage due to trying to shoot too quick, then I did the same thing on two more a couple of stages later. I am proof positive that there is no such thing as a target too big or too close to miss. I did manage to shoot the other four stages clean. Somehow...

Friday afternoon, after a nicely done lunch of burgers, beans, potato salad, cookies, and soda, was the team shoot. Shooter numbers were drawn in groups of four. Clint ended up teamed with Belinda Belle, Texas Slick Willy, and Willie Killem. I was teamed with Wogg, Kuna, and Pinto Smith. The object of the team shoot was somewhat as follows: the four team members were chained together at the ankles. The guns were staged on four tables out behind the jailhouse. The team would run outside as best they could, run to the first table, and the first person on the chain shot the rifle targets while everybody else stood behind them. Once that was done, the remaining three went to the second table, where the next person on the chain shot two pistols. The remaining two went to the next pistol table, and the next person on the chain shot two pistols. Then the last person went to the shotgun. The whole thing was pretty entertaining, except for the fact that Clint's team beat ours. And everybody else's. Clint was heard to say that "It'll probably be the only time in my life that I beat Wogg!"
That's Clint in the blue plaid shirt. He was the shotgun guy on his team and he did a dandy job of getting his 97 loaded quick and knocking down the two targets he had to shoot.

This is Clint with his trophy for the team shoot. He appears to be just tickled to death with himself, doesn't he? My team ended up fifth, quite possibly mainly because Wogg missed a shot with the pistol. We're going to blame him any way. Otherwise we would have been second. It probably would have helped if I had shot faster on the rifle targets, too, but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any of them...

Saturday wasn't quite as hot as Friday, but almost. The humidity level was quite a bit higher, which made those of us who shoot Frontier Cartridge (myself) and Frontiersman (Rockhouse Ryan) quite popular with the RO/timer, the spotters, and the rest of the posse. The way I look at it is that if all and sundry are complaining about the smoke, I've accomplished at least a part of what I set out to do. Unfortunately, I had four misses on Saturday mainly due to not being able to see the targets and just firing for effect. Again unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the smoke. At least not yet. Sweet Violet is supposed to e-mail me some pictures of me shooting, and if there's any smoky ones there I'll post 'em...

So Saturday after lunch clouds moved in and a minor monsoon ensued, right during the dart throw. It actually felt good standing out there getting soaked, up until the breeze came up and I was wet enough I actually started to get a little chilled. Of course the sun came out again and took care of that...

The banquet Saturday night was good, although the drinks at the no-host bars were way overpriced. One of the high points of the evening was the fact that I ended up with a trophy for third place in Frontier Cartridge, which was totally unexpected. It turns out that I beat the fourth place guy by .63 seconds. I would have actually beaten him by more except I had 8 misses and he had none...

Over all, this was a great shoot. I was at the first one in 2005, and this one was way much better. Better organized, better presented, more interesting stuff going on, etc. It was just an all around good time...

This has never happened to me before...

(Deep, gravelly Rod Serling voice) Picture a man on a journey through time and space...

(flashback) His trusty steed, his Diamondback mountain bike, has carried him many miles through broiling summer heat and freezing autumn fog, with nary a complaint or flat tire...

(fade to recent past) On Wednesday, our intrepid hero mounted his trusty steed for a ride, trying to get in some miles before he embarks on Cycle Oregon in September. He had no idea how the ride would end...

(Serling fades quietly into the background)...

So. I left mom in law's place about 4:15 on my mountain bike. The reason I rode it is that I didn't feel like taking my road bike off the trainer the night before, and with the mountain bike I don't have any qualms about just laying it in the back of the pickup. The down side of that bike is that it has Specialized Armadillo kevlar belted tires and tubes filled with Slime, which makes the rolling weight a bit on the hefty side. Character building, right? The wind, as usual for this time of year, was essentially howling, blowing small pets and patio furniture across the ground. And also as generally seems to be the usual when I go abiking, it was a headwind. Not to worry, though. I've been told over and over that riding into the wind is also character building as well as good training.

I gave myself a time limit, because I had a meeting to go to later in the evening. I turned around exactly at the appointed time (well almost), snarfed down a "Sweet and Salty Peanut Bar", and began to pedal back toward mom in law's. Did I mention that the trip out was generally uphill? It was. I was pretty happy with myself, because I found myself up on the pedals on most of the hills instead of spinning along. That at least tells me that I'm not totally unprepared for CO.

Of course going back downhill was bonus. At one point I was tucked down on my bar extensions and looked down at my computer and was told that I was doing 40+. Cool!

Now, picture this chubby body pedaling merrily along chased by the wind. I've managed to get up enough speed to have a breeze in my face, so I'm a happy camper. Suddenly there's a juicy farting sound and my rear tire goes flat. Instantaneous departure of the inflationary medium (the air) to another location. This is not a good thing, as I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5 miles from my starting location.

I lay the bike on its side and make an attempt to pump up the tire, reasoning that with the amount of Slime in the tire, if I can get some air in it, I may be able to finish the ride, albeit slower. Pump, pump, pump. The tire appears to be accepting the air. Eureka!

Mounted once again, I try a few pedal strokes. In less than 20 yards, the tire is flat again. I instantly brake and look down just in time to see the valve stem make an unsuccessful attempt to travel into a different space/time continuum. It's laying on the asphalt alongside the tire. It now resides somewhere in a clump of grass alongside US 30...I had a nice walk, and finished the day with 24.5 pedaling miles, which is better than nothing, I suppose...

This has never happened to me before...

The first round of haying is about to be finished...

It's been a hectic few weeks. We've had two swathers going full blast, the baler going from early in the AM until things get too hot and dry, and the loader tractors pushing bales, loading bales, unloading bales, all that sort of thing, and the first crop alfalfa, such as it was, and the meadow hay is all cut and baled and most of it's stacked. Then it's a short break until the second alfalfa crop comes on...

Last Saturday we went to a wedding in Boise. Interesting wedding, actually. The background music while we were waiting in the sun for the bride to get herself together was pretty much wedding standard. The "bring in the bridesmaids" song was "Puttin' on the Ritz" which was definitely different. I don't remember what the groomsmen's song was, but it was contempo also. The happy couple's vows were a departure from what I think of when I think wedding. I generally think of God, and pledging to honor Him, and so on and so forth. This didn't happen this time. Maybe I'm just old fashioned...

Of course any trip to Boise is an excuse to get in some shopping at Costco on the way over. Since they put the new Costco in Nampa, it's nice because now we don't have to go clear out the other side of Boise to get there. And the Nampa Costco is right across the street from the new Sportsman's Warehouse, too. I went there while Cheryl and her mom and sis were at Costco. Amazingly enough, I went to SW for two specific things, and found one of them. This is somewhat unusual...

Life is moving along. I need to get parts for one of Clint's pistols and have Bowen Valley Kid (Keith) look at the other one before the 26th, which I'm assuming is the annual night shoot at Virtue Flat. I need to get ahold of Lever Action Louie and see for sure. With the price of fuel, he may decide it costs too much to run the generator. I hope not. I've got some shotshells loaded up with real black powder that should put out some pretty good fireballs. Hopefully we can get some pictures to post...

So that's about how life is going on Sisley Creek at the moment. Remember, boring can be our friend...