Today was a doozy. Another near-century (we’re gonna call 96 miles a century at this point) with 5,000 feet of climbing. The elevation map looked like a right triangle. It was mostly a gradual climb but at 60 miles BAM it started to get extremely steep. At one point there were 7 people sagging in uncle Rico (the van). Although our expected time of arrival at the stayover was 8PM we got in at about 6:00.
Crescent is a town of about 300 people and it is so small that the people at the grocery store knew our stayover contact Gil from us just mentioning his first name to him. After some last minute changes, we ended up staying at an old haunted out of use restaurant for the night. Complete with a bowling alley, a bar, a banquet hall, and a full kitchen straight out of the 1970’s, this place could pretty much be the set of the Shining. The strange thing about this place was that it seemed like it had been the local hangout one night and abandoned the next day. There were bowling balls and shoes still in the bowling alley and cups still in the bar. We couldn’t resist the haunted charm and ended up playing a game of hide and seek.
We had a surprise today, Jessica returned. After flying all the way to Eugene and then taking a two-hour cab, she showed up at our stayover and surprised us all. After about 15 minutes of just going around and hugging everyone, she was finally able to get settled in for the night.
Tomorrow we have loads of climbing into Crater Lake and we will not have service while camping at the top. It is a famously hard I4k ride and I am quite scared for my knees. We expect it to get extremely cold at the top and tent groups are actually trying to recruit more people into their tent for added warmth.
What goes up must come down right?
MB