Day 5, June 1

By the time I got up around 7, one of the other bikers, a guy in his late 20s whose name I did not catch the night before, had already left. He was traveling from Dayville out to Sisters, Or and back.  Ron and Marion, who are also following the transamerica bike trail to the coast in Virginia, and Mike, who is following the same route as far as Wyoming, were already almost packed up. All are in their late 50s to early 60s in age. The group beat me to the cafe by about 10 minutes. I spent much of the day playing catch up as a result since they headed out about 10 minutes ahead of me.

The ride started with a challenging 6.5 mile climb to the top of 4300 foot Keyes Creek Summit. Due to the strong headwind on the backside I didn't even get the joy of a downhill run. I was at times pedaling to go downhill.

About 20 miles out I ran into another cyclist headed westbound with a plan to ride over a 6500 ft dirt fire road a few miles behind me.  If I had not crossed the road and stopped to talk to him I would have probably missed the " Tree of Soles", which was about 50 ft past him. I don't know what the story is but as you can see below this was a tree with a few hundred shoes on it. It was 20 miles from the nearest town in either direction and had a sign on it that reaf, "just a few old souls hanging around."

In the 20 miles after that I past John Day National Fossil Beds Monument before catching up to Ron, Marion and Mike as they were getting up to leave after lunch in Dayville. Two pictures from that area appear below.

After lunch I headed on to the town of Mt Vernon then on to John Day. Pulling into the campground at the fairgrounds where I again met up with Ron, Marion and Mike, who had just finished setting up their tents. It was an odd campground, with a barn to store our bikes and charge all our devices in.  The total mileage for the day was 69 miles.

I have discovered one minor physical issue to deal with. I am getting cooked! The 30 spf sunscreen I have is not cutting it. Before leaving town tomorrow I am going to try to find some with an spf of 50.