October 3: Klamath Falls, Oregon to Alturas, California
I rode part of the OC&E Woods Line State Trail again today. Pat and I rode the eight mile long paved section of it yesterday and today, I re-rode about four miles of it to connect with Highway 39 headed south out of Klamath Falls and towards California. Twenty-two miles later, I crossed the California border. California becomes the forty-seventh state visited by The Dream Tour.
Now that we’ve visited California, we only have one state remaining: Nevada. We should cross that border in a few days and then about a week after that, we’ll be crossing the border into Utah, the state where it all began back on March 18.
I’ve been trying to coordinate my return to Salt Lake City with the people from Bayer HealthCare and the Utah Diabetes Center. Tentatively, we’re planning a return to Salt Lake City on October 19. There are a lot of details yet to iron out, but I’ll post those details on thedreamtour.org as I learn them.
Anyway, back to my ride today. I’m guessing it must have been national snakes on the road day or something. I saw more snakes crawling across the road today than I’ve seen on all other days on The Dream Tour combined. I tried to get a picture of at least one, but they were too quick to slither off into the grass. Call me crazy, but I’m not going to go chasing after snakes in the grass to take their picture.
Today was my first day in quite a while during which I didn’t ride at least part of the day on Highway 97. That was nice. Unfortunately, Oregon’s Highway 39 wasn’t much better. But, California’s Highway 139 was better. It was pretty busy near the border, but traffic thinned out the further south I went. Then, when I entered the Modoc National Forest, there was a long stretch of brand-new, wide-shouldered tarmac. Smooth as silk to ride on!
Our original plan today was to ride to Canby, California. I met Pat just outside of Canby and she reported on her search of Canby for lodging. Her report was not promising. The closest opportunity for lodging was in Alturas, twenty miles to the east. Fortunately, that twenty miles was on fairly flat terrain and with a tailwind, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to get there.
| Total distance: | 97.60 miles |
|---|---|
| Time: | 6:57:23 |
| Average speed: | 14.0 mph |
| Maximum speed: | 32.9 mph |
| Total calories: | 6529 |
| Average heart rate: | 122 bpm |
| Maximum heart rate: | 151 bpm |
| Total ascent: | 2136 feet |
| Total descent: | 1866 feet |
| Ride profile: |  (click on image to view a larger version) |
| Ride comments: Headwinds again today. Not very strong most of the time, but occasional strong gusts. Much to my relief, with about 30 miles to go, the wind seems to shift to the northwest. We planned to stop in Canby, but there wasn’t any lodging there, so I continued on to Alturas. With the wind at my back, the extra 20 miles wasn’t too much of a stretch. |
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October 4th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Peter: It has been thrilling to follow your progress day by day. The print out of each day’s e-mail goes into a 3-hole notebook (we’re now in Book No. 3) and we’ve been circling your destinations on the maps in our road atlas! What a geography lesson this has been! Wow! All the best!
Janet and Ellis Jones (St. Peter, Minnesota)
October 6th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Pete-
Your landscape photos are breath-taking - the mountains in several different ways. We’re looking forward to seeing you guys again and welcoming you home. But I will kind of miss your daily postings.
We’re off for the week of racing at the Senior Games in St. George - I’m hoping for a lot of wind at my back. Peter has trained more and won’t be needing as much help…..
Bee