Day 7, June 21, 2015, Baker City, OR to Otario, OR, 83 miles and 2100 feet of climbing:  Another phenomenal day out In the West as we follow the Oregon Trail/Old Hwy 30 towards the East.  Clear skies and 53 degrees in the morning and as we worked our way to Ontario it approached 80 degrees with a very slight head wind.  Leaving Baker City we had a slight climb but early on we started to descend and with a few exceptions it was trending down hill all the way.  The highlight of my day was “racing” a 200+ car freight train that was traveling parallel to the road.  I chased and gained ground on it for the longest time and about ¼ mile before our paths departed I pulled ahead.  The engineer rewarded me with a long blast of his whistle, I through my hands up in victory and we parted ways.  Ahhh the thrill of victory!!  Shortly after, our route took us onto Interstate 84.  Out here bikes are allowed on the interstate when there are no alternative paved roads between two points.  Fortunately the traffic was light and a very wide shoulder had recently been repaved. nUnfortunately after about 7 miles we had to be ferried through a construction area by our vans and trailers.  It all went well though, as our staff is extraordinary and they handle everything with great efficiency.  In the end we “lost” about 7 miles of riding. (Now, I suspect that there may be an individual following this blog who will take great satisfaction in making the point that I did not actually “do” the entire ride.  To him I just want to point out that what I had  do is much different that deciding 24 hour in advance that it might rain the next day, or you might have a tummy ache so you had better call your wife for a ride.  Or my favorite: consistently giving up just prior to making it all the way to the bridge, year after year after year.  I’m just saying…….)  Towards the end of the day we got our first intro to the Snake River.  Apparently we will be seeing a lot of it as we pass into Idaho.  We also passed into the Mountain Time zone.  Tomorrow we leave Oregon behind.  She has been a gracious and beautiful host, but we have to keep on moving down the road.

 

It's Father's Day so I thought I would treat myself to a double, double shot:)

 

Road out of Baker City

 

Railroad track next to road leaving Baker City

 

Biking on I-84

 

Loading bikes onto vans to be ferried around construction on I-84

 

Snake River

 

Elevation map of yesterday's ride. Ouch....

 

Elevation map to today's ride.  Ahhh....