Biggs, OR to The Dalles, OR 25miles!

I just erased everything I wrote while I was trying to correct a spelling error the whole day disappeared! Agh!

It’s funny, the feeling when I get whether I bike 75 miles or 25 miles, when I have two miles  left or so I just want to get there. That was the case today, we cycled just 25 miles.

I didn’t want to climb out of Biggs over the busy bridge and up the steep escarpment with all the 18 wheelers moving through to the expressway and other roads. So Steven presented an option that involved staying on the Oregon side of the River and different scenery and a different kind of a ride. I said okay. We left Biggs and travelled about 4.5 miles on a road that was gently trending up. At 4.5 the gravel road started, it was much steeper than I imagined, even though Steven said that we’d have to push our bikes up. I was difficult to push our bikes, but soon it became kind of fun. I marveled at my stamina as I wound up the gravel road my feet sliding as I pushed. Boy oh boy was it worth it when we got to the top the air was a little cooler and we were up high looking at the grain or farms of hay a couple of farm houses and cows. And across the way more mountains and in between and way below the deep blue of the Columbia River. I wondered how many cyclists get to cone here a year, 10, maybe, maybe only us! This definitely was one of the most striking scenes of the trip. It was super fun to ride on the gravel too because it’s somewhat technical. It was over too quickly and we found ourselves back on a sparingly traveled paved road in the lower farm country. As we closed in on our destination, The Dalles, we got a stunning view of the snow covered Mt Hood and we were decending into our destination. It was exciting to see the city nestled against the Columbia as we approached.