April 17-18

The ride from Prineville to Mitchell on April 17 took us through the Ochoco National Forest. The first 31 miles we climbed steadily, then a nice 13-mile stretch of descending, capped off with three more miles of gentle ascent. Traffic was mostly light and we only saw one person who wasn’t in a car.

That one person was a logger named Kelby Cates. When he learned that Jax and I were cycling across the country, he told me his brother had ridden across America just out of high school, then gone on to become a Navy Seal who is still serving after 24 years.

We arrived in Mitchell and crashed at the Spoke’n Hostel, a super bike-friendly place run by Pat and Jalet Farrell, assisted by Michael and Timi, who recently completed a TransAmerica tour, staying at Spoke’n en route and eventually returning to help out because they loved it so much. It is a fantastic place for cyclists, so we stayed an extra day to wash clothes (in their ingenious double-5-gallon-bucket-with-plunger machine) and clean the bike and ourselves. Mitchell is a fun little town with a great vibe, tucked into some of the prettiest country anywhere.