Writers block-sort of 6-5,6-17. mike

We’ve been pretty slack about writing lately. The beauty and grandeur of what we have been seeing is way more than my puny vocabulary can describe. It’s amazing how big things are. 

 We stayed in Baker City 2 nights. It is a medium/small town with friendly people. The museum in town was really interesting. A lot of stuff about gold mining and ranching. Also had a section about the guy who invented the Airstream trailer. He was from Baker City (who knew). 

I was hoping to be able to cook/heat water with an alcohol beer can stove on the trip. They are light and any alcohol will work for fuel, but it just wasn’t working out very well. Just on a whim I went into the local hardware to see what ideas they might have. I walked out with a little Primus ETA Lite stove. The last one they had and just happened to be on sale. Much better, we can have coffee in about 4 minutes:)

After our usual slow start we got out of town and headed for the Oregon Trail Interpretive center. Of coarse it is on top of a butte, with a 1 mile 400ft climb from the entry gate to the actual facility. We ended up pushing the last half mile where it got really steep. Pretty cool stuff to learn about inside though. After looking around for about 3 hours  and having lunch we headed for our stop for the night. According to the topography map it was mostly down hill. Only the topo maps can’t tell you the wind is going to blow against you hard enough that you have to pedal going down hill:(  We finally made it to Richland, but it was a long slog, made worth it by some of the most gorgeous views. 

There was another rider in town standing in front of the only store. He said can I split a 6 pack with you of some good micro brew? I said I didn’t think half a 6 pack was going to do it for me:)