Day 4, May 31

Most of my posts are going to be a few days behind since many of the towns I am stopping at have no cellular service and since I generally will not stop during the day to do updates. The post titles will have the actual day and/or date.

Day 4 I got a very slow start due to me being lazy getting out of the tent and needing to post a few updates. If finally got on the road just after 9.

The first stop was Prineville, about 20 miles away where I had a great burger at a place called the Dawg house. Between there and my stopping point in Mitchell was a whole lot of farmland, and later on, some rock canyons. Late in the day I had to climb Ochoco pass and barely managed to drag myself over it. On the way down the backside I had some seriously fun downhills and found myself going just over 30 mph for a bit.

Around 7:30 P.M. I pulled into Mitchell, a town of about 100 with an 1800s feel to it. There I ran into some fellow long distance bike riders. There were already 4 there when I pulled into the campground in the downtown park there.  Unfortunately I missed the cafe closing by about 5 minutes and had to make due with some less than fantastic food options I had in my panniers. Since neither of the last two nights campgrounds had showers I got a bit creative and took a bath in the stream behind the park.

A few pictures from the day appear below. I covered just over 69 miles.

I don't know if you can see it in the photo below but one of the signs in the background points to the "business district" of this 100 person town. It consisted of maybe 20 buildings with about half obviously not in use.

Fellow bikers already set up in the park.

Mitchell cafe and general store.