September 23: Dayton, Washington to Umatilla, Oregon
As I left Dayton, Washington this morning, I saw a 300-foot high Jolly Green Giant. And no, I wasn’t hallucinating.
Dayton’s major employer is the Seneca Foods asparagus cannery. Seneca Foods is part of the Green Giant Foods company and the Jolly Green Giant is its logo. So, they constructed a 300-foot high Jolly Green Giant on a steep embankment west of town which was too steep to be farmed, even by Dayton area farmers who are known for some of the most vertically farmed land in the country.
There was one eight-hundred foot climb south of Waitsburg, but the rest of the ride today was a slow descent on a busy Highway 12 to the Columbia River. On the way there, I passed through Walla Walla, “the town so nice they named it twice”, the locals say. In fact, it was originally known as Steptoeville, but when it came time to incorporate in 1862, it was incorporated as Walla Walla (supposedly a Nez Percé word meaning “small rapid rivers”). Anyway, I’ve always thought Walla Walla sounded like such an exotic place, so I was anxious to take a look today. Well, it turns out Walla Walla is a nice town, but it’s also a lot like any other city. Oh well.
Twenty miles further down the road, I reached the Columbia River and the end of my 930 mile trip on Highway 12. I started riding on Highway 12 way back on September 4 in Bowman, North Dakota. I’ve seen a little bit of everything on Highway 12 and it has been a good friend for the last two weeks.
I didn’t miss Highway 12 for very long though, because six miles later I met the state of Oregon. Oregon becomes the forty-sixth state visited by The Dream Tour. Only 1400 miles and the states of California and Nevada remain before we’re back home.
| Total distance: | 83.59 miles |
|---|---|
| Time: | 5:47:30 |
| Average speed: | 14.4 mph |
| Maximum speed: | 31.8 mph |
| Total calories: | 5399 |
| Average heart rate: | 113 bbpm |
| Maximum heart rate: | 159 bpm |
| Total ascent: | 1605 feet |
| Total descent: | 2705 feet |
| Ride profile: |  (click on image to view a larger version) |
| Ride comments: A clear and sunny day. Cool in the morning. Warmed up to the mid-60’s by early afternoon. Light headwinds on the flat roads along the Columbia River. Crossed the border into Oregon. Oregon becomes the forty-sixth state that The Dream Tour has visited. |
|