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Day 11 - June 18 - Baker City, OR to Pine Creek, OR - 66 miles Click on the thumbnails to view larger pictures.
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| A light rain fell during the night giving us
one of the best nights sleep we've had so far. The down side of
that is having to pack up wet, messy tents which adds weight to the
already heavy load. We had an early cup of coffee at the camp office
before starting the day's ride. Ron's happy!
The sky look threatening this morning when we left, and it wasn't long before a light drizzle started to fall. For the first time we had to break the rain gear out. At the beginning it was just intermittent drizzle, but we could see something bigger brewing over the mountains around us. It looked like it was coming in our direction so we rode hard to try and avoid the storm. It didn't work. The skies opened up, and we found ourselves in the middle of a serious thunderstorm. For about 20 miles it rained buckets, the wind blew and gusted at 20-30 mph, and thunder and lightening struck all around. This kept up the whole way to Richland where we were able to take cover in the Short Horn Restaurant. We were drenched! Once inside we sat down to a nice lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches and hot potato soup. The lunch and conversation with the locals revived our spirits, and by the time we finished eating the sun came out and things started to dry out. One of the locals there said "you never know when the storms will blow up or where they'll come from. You just can't predict the weather in the mountains." He was right. The sun stayed out and the remainder of the ride was enjoyable. By the time we got to Pine Creek everything was dry and we were feeling much better about the day. We set up camp at Hell's Canyon RV Park. The facilities there were rustic, but it was better than sleeping in the woods and showering under a hose as we did at Austin Junction. Dinner at the Hell's Canyon cafe was very good and we topped it off with a delicious piece of apple pie covered with 2 scoops of ice cream. We're already forgetting the storm we rode through today. |
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