Over the last climb

Prineville was a nice town of over twenty thousand people and we camped in a great campground run by the county.  Our cooks outdid themselves by making up a curry fish over rice.  I was skeptical when I heard what they were cooking but it really turned out very good.
Saturday got us on the road a little later than usual, everyone is taking it easy since we only have forty four miles to ride with no major climbs. On this ride we did get our first look at the Cascades, our last mountain range to cross.

This is a picture of the three sisters mountains.

In Sisters we stayed at a ranch about 3 miles east of town.  Many of us arrived early and unloaded out gear and then rode into Sisters. This is a nice tourist town with a lot of shops and restaurants. We had a good lunch and then went to the coffee house for a good cup of coffee. We did our shopping for the evening dinner and headed back to the ranch.  Our hosts were very gracious and we were able to shower and use their kitchen to prepare our evening dinner, steak! This was another great meal and the five amigo's played a couple of games of cards before hitting the hay.

Speaking of the Amigo's, we have had a lot of fun on this trip and I believe I have made four lifelong friends.  Terry is an es Olympian (biathlon) and a custom furniture maker. Sjef, from Holland is semi retired and has a small farm with horses at home. I do not think his wife will recognize him, he has lost so much weight. David, from England, is a great guy who can ride very well and plans on going to Sardinia, with his wife, when he gets home. Tough life.  Jason, also from England has his own electrical contracting business and will get back to work when he gets home.  All great friends who I hope I will get to see again after this trip.

OK, enough of that stuff, on Sunday we got up as usual and headed out by 7:30 AM and we had our last big climb of the trip, a twenty two hundred foot climb up McKenzie Pass to an elevation of over 5200'.

Here we have Sjef on the right and David on the left at the summit standing on lava rock

The top 400 feet of this pass are lava rock and not much else. There is a sign stating that this is a national forest but there is only lave rock. 

The descent down the pass was one of the best, nothing like saving the best for last. Lots of switchbacks and hairpin turns. To bad there were slow cars and RVs on the road down. I still had a lot of fun on this downhill.  We are staying in a campground in McKenzie Bridge and head for Colburg in the morning.

Life is Good!   Bobo