AJ to Baker City: Mountains, Headwinds, and... Headwinds!

I'm sitting a library in Baker City, Oregon - and I have a keyboard to type on! Look at all these extra words I can type because I'm not typing on a phone!  blah blah wacko blah blah see! It's not even hard to type now! Yay!

I also found out that my pictures weren't uploading in hi-rez, so starting today when you click on them you'll get hi-rez pretty panoramic awesome versions.  If you are just waiting for facebook to see when I update, you won't be seeing the picture updates, so go to the main blog to see them.

Last I updated I was bedding down for to sleep in AJ, having pitched a tent due to a slight worry of rain.  Around 1 am the wind in the trees woke me up, and my rainy-sense started tingling. I got up and brought all my bags in my tent just in case, so I was well prepared when the rain came at 4 am.  I decided to sleep through it, rolling out of my tent at 7 am to a damp but rain-free forest.  Bob and Jim were long gone. I didn't hit the road until 8:30.

There were two rather large passes today in the first 22 miles (Tipton and Sumpter), but I made it the top of the last one by 10:30 am and took a hour lunch there. I passed Bob going up Sumpter and eventually he met me at the top.   Then there was 15 miles of downhill tailwind followed by 15 miles of crazy headwind through a beautiful canyon wind-tunnel of doom - which opened into a beautiful wide-open wind plane of doom.  On that wind plane I caught Rob, who actually hasn't left our route after all.  He is buying a LTH in Baker City and trading in his full suspension bike.  By the way, you may have noticed that most of the towns, passes, and mountains around here (Dixie, Sumpter, etc) were named by southern sympathizers during the civil war.

Despite the headwinds, I finished my two-pass 50 mile day by 1:30.  I ran in to Jim in town, and he and Bob are at different hotels.  Rob and I are camped for free near a Y in a windswept field, and Tim is still in John Day.  It looks like I may be parting from most the Mitchell crew soon since Bob may be taking a rest day, Rob is staying to get his bike, and Tim is way behind.  Jim may be the only one continuing to Halfway, Oregon tomorrow.  I bought some sidewalk chalk so I can leave them bad jokes on the long hills.

All-in-all I'm feeling really good.  I'm riding hard, but getting in to town so early that I can really heal up and relax.  I haven't had too much trouble finding a place to stay, and I already have a place Halfway figured out. I've ridden 7 mountain passes in the 6 days since I left, which is why my days have been only 50-60 miles. I've also enjoyed pacing with the Mitchell crew and want to take it easy early in the trip so I don't injure myself.  I'll need to up my miles in Eastern Montana and South Dakota if I want to catch RAGBRAI by July 19th.

Baker City has been a pretty fun town to walk around in. Also, I also pooped in the woods today.