Wagontire to Lakeview

We left in the morning with great stories of how strong the wind had become over the night. People could hear the tents flapping all through the night and one tent actually just flipped over so no one could use it to sleep it. We simply threw a cooler onto it over the night and people found other places to stay.

So I enjoyed 7 hours of sleep on the floor of a motel room, yes! We ate our breakfast and were pumped up by a great game of Red Rover by the Most Valuable Cyclist from yesterday. As we went on our way, I knew it would be a great riding day of 85 miles through the desert and woods.

I had some great discussions up until the first lunch stops just about topics discussed the night before in 60 Minutes. While discussing, we biked through Alkali Lake which is an old dried up body of water that has salts now. We also biked past a patch of sand dunes and came up to the Rest Area where we were originally supposed to spend the night. Let’s just say it was a great lunch spot but I am satisfied that we decided not to spend the night there.

After our first lunch, we biked 10 miles until we came along Lake Abert. It was along the road for 20 miles of our journey as we watched birds and cattle along it. It was fairly shallow, and its bottom ground was Basalt. Geographically, basalt was a key component of the Abert Rim surrounding the lake also. It give us a weird smell but it was beautiful scenery until 2nd lunch.

The most exciting thing about the last leg of the trip was how trees just randomly appeared again. We biked 25 miles through the forest with hills & meadows that had strong gusts along them. Even though there was a strong headwind against us, we battled on up and down to Lakeview. It was just a nice contrast in what surrounded us along our ride, I think it lifted up the spirits of everyone.

Lakeview is a nice small town in Southeastern Oregon with a great church. The Baptist Church is hosting us and we have all meals provided. We even had ice cream sandwiches and soda waiting for us, woohoo! Unfortunately I got in too late to hit up the Antelope Refuge area nearby, but maybe next time.