John’s Ramblings

Day 5 – Maryhill to Crow Butte Park – 67 miles
(or, “Well, blow me down!”)

By now, I’m getting the hang of this camping stuff. After about 15 years avoiding sleeping on the ground, sani-cans, and eating dirt I’m starting to enjoy the routine of setting up and breaking down camp. I’m a morning-routine kinda guy, so this kind of stuff is right up my alley. Throw in a breakfast that I don’t have to cook, and I’m a happy man.

We had to start Thursday with a big climb, however. All that descending we did to get to Maryhill State Park had to be given back, in the form of about 1,000 feet of ascent. Without inclinometer, GPS, or a Polar HRM that filled up it’s memory, my guess would be that the grade varied from a benign 4% up to about 8%. There were lots and lots of folks walking this stretch (yes, I rode it, but it wasn’t pretty). I didn’t stop at the little Stonehenge store again, because a.) it was closed, and b.) it’s hard to justify an ice-cream reward when your odometer tells you that you are only at mile 2.

10 miles and much grunting and groaning later, we encounter the first water/snack stop of the day. Justine is running the show here, and informs all the riders that there are “severe cross-winds at the aluminum plant”. She has no mph data on the sidewinds, and the term “severe” was handed to her via radio. As it turned out, my best guess was that the sidewinds in a couple of sections were at least 30 mph. They hit you fast, as winds came down small canyons in the walls of the gorge. One gust (just next to the aluminum plant, coincidentally) moved me a couple of feet to the right, and tore my cue sheet right out of my cue-clip. This usually reliable device has never failed me before, but it’s tight little grip was no match for the winds today.

The day went really fast, once the winds got back on our backs. I didn’t end up taking a ton of pictures, but here’s yet another dam on the Columbia, somewhere between there and there:

I saw more than a couple of trucks loaded with these blades (propellers?) for wind-turbines. There are dozens of wind-farms sprouting up in Eastern Washington, and these blades look small when viewed from a distance. Up close, you can see they are likely close to 70 feet in length. There are three blades mounted to each wind turbine:

Without my trusty cue-sheet, my recap here is flying as blind as, well, a cyclist on a bike tour with no cue sheet. I don’t recall where we stopped for lunch, but I do remember that it was a park that required a reverse-direction entry. That means for about a mile you had to buck the 20 mph headwinds to get to the park. Once there we were served a roast beef sandwich that needed 3 mayo packets lubrication (we were only allotted two). Tasty, just a little dry. My suggestion will be to locally source your bakery products, rather than expect your lunch rolls to survive a week in a truck.

I arrived at Crow Butte Park in the early afternoon. I set about scouting good tent sites, but it appeared that the best were taken. The basic choices were:

• In the sheltered trees, but on a slope, or
• On flat ground, in a wind tunnel

Not having the advice and counsel of Scoutmaster Russ (he was still pedaling), I followed the lead of some of the more experienced RAW riders and set up in the flat wind-tunnel section. My reasoning was that the wind would die down, but the hillside would never flatten out. I also couldn’t picture spending the night trying to roll myself to higher-ground inside my own tent. The only flaw in my reasoning was that while the wind did eventually die down, it chose not to do so until 4 a.m. I was tired enough, however, that I was able to sleep through most of the all-night flapping of the tents.

I heard that a couple of people actually lost control of their dinner plates in the wind, forcing a re-queue at the catering truck. I ate with my back to the wind, my amble bod shielding my turkey dinner from the gale.

Thursday night is the final big rider’s meeting, where prizes are handed out for the best helmet decoration, as well as prizes for raffle tickets earned during the week. Best helmet this year was titled “Motivation”, and it featured a half-sandwich suspended in front of the rider on a stick, and two beer bottles protruding out the back.

Day 6

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