Day 7 - Rolling Rest Day as We Enter a Foreign Country

Day 7 - Klamath Falls to Dorris, California
Checking the wind, the rain and working on the blog.

We waited until 11:00 to head south. This unique Ford dealer building was right across the street from our motel. Thought Doug's brothers would find it interesting.

The bike path we followed took us past this swimming pool. Donna could have been doing laps instead of working on the blog :)

Not very warm but at least it is mostly dry so far.

Had lunch and stopped at BiMart for toothpaste on our way out of town. That's where we found our favorite truck art. 

Not so dry now...it started raining just as we reached the edge of town BUT it isn't windy at all.

Back on Highway 97

Pit stop at Midland...still raining

First really blue sky we've seen in a few days!

Our sound of the day was birds...all kinds of them in the wetlands between the highway and the train tracks. You will just have to imagine the photogenic flock of ducks sitting in this pond when we stopped to take off our raingear.

Only one little hill between us and Dorris.

We are now entering our foreign country. It says California but locals refer to this area as the State of Jefferson.

Our very pleasant rolling rest day ends at the bottom of this hill. Given the drought, the little bit of rain today was a small inconvenience. Forecast is for sunny skies tomorrow.

Day 6 - Can You Say Headwinds

Day 6 - Chiloquin to Klamath Falls
The storm that was lurking off the coast is headed our way.

This is the most artistic display of barbed wire we've seen. It hangs in the motels's restaurant where we had breakfast.

It is windier this morning but also a little warmer than yesterday 

Darn wind sock anyway!

We stopped at the store to get bananas but they didn't have any. Their sign said 66F but didn't tell us wind speed. Maybe we really didn't want to know anyway.

The most beautiful roadkill we've seen. A sad way to see an owl this close.

The Sprague River with storm clouds on the horizon. Fortunately, they stayed there all morning.

Darn headwind.....it is blowing 10-15 mph now.

Reaching open water didn't help either. What did help was when 3 semis in a row passed us and we could semi-surf a couple extra mph for a bit. 

Looks like we are staying ahead of the storm so far. The birds seem to be really enjoying the day and Donna is too except she doesn't hover very well.

Taking pictures was a good excuse to take a wind break.

So we took a bunch!

It ONLY took us 3 hours to reach Hagelstein Park, 16 miles from our start.

What you can't see is that we now have a quartering headwind which is almost harder than the straight-on headwind. When trucks go by balancing is the job at hand. The winds are getting stronger and stronger too.  We were beginning to think the wind speeds were approaching the highs highs for the day, 25 mph with gusts to 30 mph . Our arms were actually more tired than our legs at this point. 

The birds are taking a break too. There are pelicans, great egrets, gulls and more that we couldn't identify. The basin is bird heaven.

Hurray! We made it! Soooo happy to see this sign.

The advantage to being done riding by 1:00 was that we missed the REAL wind (25-30 mph) and had time to explore downtown.

A little bit of Hawaii in the Klamath Basin. They even offered Hawaiian quilting classes.

A good dinner spot conveniently right next door to our motel.

A nice way to end our first week on the road. The wind even gave us time to blog, something we weren't sure we would start this time out. 230 miles and lots of smiles.

Day 5 - The Weather is Changing - It's Autumn!

Day 5 - Chemult to Chiloquin
The forecast is for increasing winds from the south as the day goes on so we got an early start....with some help from this guy.

The forecasters were right....8-10 mph headwind starting at about 10:30. Looks Bend to Burns except there are trees. Glad that at least it is mostly flattish terrain.

A very popular place for truckers. For us it was a good lunch stop as they had a picnic table out front.

They put chrome lugnuts on everything!

Our one downhill stretch.

Spring Creek in the foreground with the museum grounds on the other side.

Following the Williamson River

Aspen are just starting to turn color but are always a pleasure to see.

Just in case you didn't believe us about the wind.

We have stabled our trusty steeds at Melita's for the night.