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| My Ninja camping spot |
Thursday 4/26 Day 6
let me tell you something about camping in a tent. You have as high of a chance to get soaked from the rain as you do from the condensation. I did manage to stay pretty dry last night, at least my sleeping things. Although my stuff was dry my tent was soaked!!! Except the bottom. It rained pretty dang hard last night. As I was packing up I was thinking of the times at second nature when I would give the kids like 16- 25 minutes to pack up everything. Those kids were rock stars because they actually did it, it took me a solid forty minutes to pack up. I bet in two months ill be able to get it all done in half that time. Most my time is wasted looking in bags multiple times for an item that I had put away.
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| The Canyon I slept in |
Again I started off with a climb and it kept going and going. It was pretty chilly and damp out. I had my leg warmers and my rain jacket on. I ended up going only six miles in about a hour and a half where I was so frustrated that I rolled off the road and had breakfast. There must have been something in those chia seeds because after breakfast I flew. I was the machine.
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| Sexy... |
Pete gave me the idea of riding a bit before breakfast to get the body moving, get out of your camping area, and to break up the day a bit. It works great, but the goal of twenty miles before breakfast did not work today. The only city in my path in the morning was Bickleton with 90 people in it. Filled some water and went on my way. The old ladies in the cafe gave me a weird look as if wondering where i appeared from. the down hill that followed the city was perfect. I got about 23miles in an hour the land turned into these grassy hills and the road flowed between them. I saw no cars on the road for over an hour so i took up the entire lane. The rest of the day followed suit. I was able to get 88miles today and it felt more relaxing than the first ninety mile day to Portland. The body is getting used to all this riding. Since I'm not riding tomorrow it puts my first week at almost 350 miles.
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| Action Shot, SPEED |
John, with warm showers, was unable to meet me and ride with me into town, but he did give me detailed directions to get to his place. We were in Richland one of the tri-cities. Once there I was able to dry my stuff out, get a shower, and washed my cloths. my two pound tent weighed close to ten pounds with all the water on it from the night before. Dinner was great sausage and pasta where we talked about Italian heritage, biking, and Oregon. By eight I finished talking to Ellie, Johns wife, and went upstairs I was exhausted.
Hey Jeff! I am just reading your accounts of the actual trip for the first time. The pics have been great! Are you shooting with your iPod or did you bring your fancy camera with?
ReplyDeleteA few suggestions(based on my experience) that may help things go more easily for you:
-I see that you have your front panniers mounted at the top of the rack. Try mounting them on the next bar down, as this will lend a little more stability to your ride by getting the weight a bit lower. The mounting hardware on those bags is pretty easy to adjust, but you may need one of those star-headed wrenches to get the lower hook in the right place. Don't put them too far down,as it then becomes easy to scrape them on stuff. That is how I wore the holes into the one with "FR" written on it.
-Your "stealth camping" stories have been pretty funny. I did a lot of that on my trips, but what I ended up finding out was that people are generally quite willing to let you camp on their property, especially if there is enough space that you can get away from their house. It's also nice if there is some brushy cover/trees that you can use to hide when "relieving" yourself in the morning and evening. Other nice bonuses to look for include outdoor water faucets, electric outlets, picnic tables and shelters.
I would say that about 95% of the people who I asked allowed me to camp, and of those about 25% would even invite me in for dinner. It's also great way to meet some really interesting people. The worst thing that could happen is that they say no and you just have to move on. It's best to give yourself plenty of time in the afternoon/evening to find a place to camp, as it can get hard to find a good spot once it gets dark. Oh yeah, and stay away from places that have mean-looking dogs or that look sketchy.
I hope that this is helpful. I'm really enjoying your posts! Ride on!
-Andrew
Thanks for the tips dude. I had a couple people offer me places to stay over the last few days. It is a great feeling to have that support. I will try moving those panniers soon, that would help make accessing them easier since the tent covers them. Hope work is going well seems like the blog gives you something to read at that time :). Going to the sun road next, hoping I can get through it! Thanks for following.
DeleteAmazing jeffrey! What an exciting experience you have already begun! I'm so glad you had the "guts" to go out and really do this! Something I definitely don't have...but might work on it :) I would have loved to be out there with you for a day! even with the girls on the back...but boy would that be hard! no highways! Love ya and see you soon!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys!! Come up and visit with dad in may if school is done!
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