Day 2: Austin Junction-ish To Big Bend BLM Campground (aka Ouch!)

So normally, I am a pretty chill bike tourist.  I like to stop and smell the roses, do side hikes, dip my toes in the river, and otherwise, just take my time.  Sometimes, you live 4 lifetimes in a day and end up biking 84 miles under the blazing eastern Oregon sun.  Beautiful and brutal miles, to say the least.  We took our time getting out of camp since we had rolled in just before sunset the night before.

Morning riding and perfect temperatures (photo credit: Kate).

Me taking pictures of you taking pictures of me... I like to get low sometimes (photo credit: Kate).

The picture I actually took.

Remember that time we saved the baby fawn from uncertain death by barbed wire and I almost bit it climbing back down this steep hillside?

Snack break at the Galena "ghost town."  It was a little underwhelming, but amused us for about 5 minutes.

River, road, cliff.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

As the sun rose and the cool morning temperatures gave way to hot summer heat, we battled through the last cruddy climb of the trip.  Each summit seemed to have a road or path up to a lookout tower, so Ani and I took the opportunity to walk up and see what we could see.  Michelle and Kate hunkered under the shade of a tree and rested while we took our side trip.  Alas, the lookout tower was locked, so instead, we amused ourselves and did a bunch of handstands.

The world looks good upside down and surrounded by lupine.

And then finally, we descended into the most beautiful canyon.  It was an explosion of colorful rock formations and we forced ourselves to stop and enjoy the view despite our urge to just let go of the brakes.  As we took in the views of the valley, we saw a small speck working its way slowly up the hill.  Was it a bike tourist?  Was that a trailer he was pulling?

Somewhere down there is a speck of a cyclist.

Michelle gets some love from Fearless Fred!

We thought we were in the home stretch and that we would find camping just past Monument.  Whoops.  All that part along the John Day river that we thought might be National Forest was actually farms... so many &*%&$-ing farms.  "Worst case scenario, we are at the BLM campground," I said.

Rolling rolling rolling...

Michelle is still in good spirits.

And well, guess what?  We ended up at the BLM campground.  All the established sites were taken, so we found a flat spot where one of the other folks told us someone had camped the night before, pitched our tents, and then made a bee line for the river to wash the salt and road grit off ourselves.  Holy crap was that water cold and the most amazing thing of my life.

Our neighbors in the RV let us use their picnic table since they had their "dining room" inside.

Michelle may have bonked a little and got a little support from this tree and ginormous sweet potato during her recovery.

A few tips for cycle tourists:

• We could have easily camped at one of two RV sites in Monument.  The first one was actually on the river and not so bad, but all of us are morally opposed to places like that.  If I had been biking alone, I probably would have stopped and knocked on the door of one of the nicely manicured farmhouses and asked for permission to camp on their property.  That said, the Big Bend BLM campground has beautiful river access and it was pretty chill (all things considered) for Memorial Day weekend.