Day 1: Snake. Skunk. Sparrow. Opossum?

Trip Start Jul 13, 2010

Trip End Jul 22, 2010

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Madras Chateau Inn

(Madras hotels)

Flag of United States Madras, Oregon
Monday, July 19, 2010

Our first morning starts off with a bang. We leave the Nakadates' at 8am and are already rolling into Redmond at 9:00. We actually beat Dean there. He honks and waves at us as we are pulling into town. Shortly thereafter we decide to stop at the Safeway Starbucks for coffee. Unfortunately it is on the other side of the road. Normally this would not be a problem, but Greg has a hard time multitasking, and checking traffic for safety as well as looking where he is going proves too much for the poor soul. He hits a nasty bump in the road and is over his handlebars with a flat rear tire before I even have a chance to see what happened. I look over my shoulder from the Safeway side of the road to see Greg on the ground looking surprised. That's when I hurry back across the road to find out what happened.

Greg is not hurt too badly despite his tumble, but the tire is dead. I go into Safeway to do some reconnaissance, and find out there is a bike shop in town within a mile. Lucky! We are able to hand pump the tire back up enough to get us there. The guy at the shop shows us the split tube. So he replaces that for us and gets us back on the road within the hour.

First Flat

Greg still hasn't had his coffee, however, so a little ways down the road we stop in Terrebonne at a drive through shop for a break and a cuppa.

Coffee Stop

The rest of the ride is relatively uneventful, although very pleasant. The biggest thing is what we think is a terribly burly hill just before dropping down and off the main highway to stop in Culver.

Wheat

Burly... ha! The next day would trump that tenfold.

We roll into Madras just before 2:00 and scope out the town on our way through to the hotel. I was just mentioning to Greg my serious pasta craving as we roll up to an Italian restaurant called Geno's. Unfortunately they are closed on Mondays: the one day we are here. According to the hotel desk attendant, they are also the *only* Italian restaurant in Madras. So my pasta craving will have to wait at least another day before being satiated.

We check into the hotel and then set out on foot to get some grub in town. We end up at a market/cafe that has healthy food. I eat a huge tofu salad and Greg snacks on a sausage roll thing and... something else. We are both amused by the sign we see on the walk back to the hotel..

Central Oregon

As a side note, there is something about cycling that really lets a person examine road kill up close. I had an opportunity to blow by a number of unfortunate critters on our way to Madras. Thus, the title of this entry.

Slideshow