Sunday, June 24, 2007

Wednesday, June 20, 2007, Welches, OR to Kah-nee-ta, OR: 67 miles, 81/2 hours, 6 hours 47 minutes on the bike, Ave. speed, 9.8 mph, Climb: 4763 ft.

[Hi TEAM JEAN - I am catching up on my daily posts - here's Wednesday's...] Today was a very hard day for me. I was up at 4:30 am and was eating breakfast by 5:30 am. On the road by 6 am. We had some major hill climbs today and they took a lot out of me. I did stop along the way as needed and even walked for a while a few times - that helps stretch some muscles as well as gives me a breather. The up side was that there were some great down hills as rewards for all that climbing. You can see that my average miles per hour took a dive today. I was in my lowest gear and going about 5 mph up those hills.

We also had some great views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson when we finally leveled out. Even after the big climbs there were several rolling hills that were very difficult because I was getting fatigued.

We finally had a monster downhill into the canyon where the Kah-nee-ta Resort is on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. That was fun. However, to get to the resort, you have to pass the Village (where there are tepees to stay in and the big pools that are heated from the natural hot springs that are there) and then climb this very steep hill to the actual resort and casino. Well, I walked my bike up that hill at 2:30 pm in the hot sun only to find out that about 10 of us (including me) had our rooms back down at the Village! Needless to say, I was a little cranky.

I had to bike back down the hill, check in and then take a shuttle back up to get my luggage and shuttle it back down. Then shuttle back up for dinner. The 10 of us ended up being called “The Village People”.

We had our group photo taken this evening – all wearing our America by Bicycle jerseys – it was a pretty neat sight to see all that red, white and blue.

No comments: