We woke up at 4am, and the first thing we noticed is that our phones hadn’t charged because the outlets built into the bedside table weren’t working in this room.  We might have realized it the day before, if it weren’t for the fact that we had switched rooms several times. The outlets in the OTHER rooms had definitely worked, dangit.  The second thing we noticed is that our Subway breakfast was very warm because the refrigerator in this room ALSO wasn’t working. I counted back the hours in my head, and it turns out we had purchased them about 10 hours prior.  They might still be okay, with all that good ‘ole fashioned processing and preserving. Still, with my luck I would end up getting food poisoning. Into the trash they went.

We managed to get out of the room within half an hour, and as we stopped by the front desk to return our keys we had a lovely chat with the employee. She told us she was honored to meet us, and wished us the best on our journey.  Afterwards, we snapped our required safety photo of the day and headed across the street to a gas station for some replacement breakfast. I picked up cheese and crackers, beef sticks, and as much fruit as I could hold in my bags.  We were on the road before 5, just as the sun was really beginning to illuminate the sky.  

The 40 miles between Baker City and Richland felt like a remote frozen tundra.  It was simultaneously very dry but also very cold and windy, and there wasn’t much tree cover for protection.  Happily, our gear was totally up for the task, and we remained toasty in our double layered gloves. You could see for miles around, and incredible snow capped mountains speckled the horizon.  The sun brightly illuminated the frosty ground. Once again, I was shocked at how beautiful this route was. I lived in the state next to Oregon and had traveled there many times, but I don’t think I had ever truly SEEN it.  I pedaled cautiously, as my right knee was giving me a little trouble. Thankfully, it was nothing like the day before, and the knee that had been more problematic yesterday was silent for the time being.

Richland didn’t have a lot going on before 8am, but we stopped in a really cute cafe that was selling delicious chocolate zucchini bread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  The coffee was surprisingly good, and very similar to my favorite Seattle shop. The waitress filled my plastic bag with ice so that I could prop my feet up on an empty chair and ice my knees.  I had smartly brought a few gallon ziplocks with me for the race, which were perfect for my current circumstances. I also used my new roller on my quads before leaving town. Since we had already decided to be snails for the day, I was free to take care of myself.  Later on, I noticed that my mom had posted a picture of me rehabbing my knees in the TABR Facebook group, and our dot watcher friend Dennis from day 1 commented again about how I was making his physical therapist heart so happy.  

Immediately after Richland, the route turns into a multi-mile climb.  I waved goodbye to Chris, telling them that I was going to do some serious knee babying up this one.  Luckily, my good choice in gearing (11-36 cassette) saved me again and it was a pretty reasonable climb despite the knees. The sun finally became strong enough to penetrate the cold, and I had to stop twice on the way up to remove layers.  The road curved heavily to the right, which allowed me to see Chris way off in the distance chatting with someone on the road. It turns out Chris had run into Mark Brady (“The English Tortoise”, as he was calling himself on Facebook during the race) who told Chris that he was just here to enjoy the scenery and take his time, with a finishing goal of 40 days.  At the top of the climb I looked behind me and was stunned by the rolling hills stretching out below.  

Somewhere near Halfway, Oregon I stopped on the side of the road to ice my knees again.  I’d carried ice with me strapped to my seat bag all the way from Richland, which was somewhat melted but still very cold.  I propped my leg up on a guardrail and took the opportunity to close my eyes and breathe deeply. Wait…was that a raindrop on my face?  I sat up and brushed the dirt off my back. The clouds that had been forming since the top of the last climb were definitely getting darker, and I spotted sporadic droplets along the road.  I suppose we should keep a move on, I thought.

The rain wasn’t too bad until we hit the town of Oxbow around mile 70 or so, at which point it started DUMPING on us at an alarming rate.  We only had 40 miles left for the day, so what was the point in getting soaked? It didn’t seem that Oxbow could really be considered a town, but there did happen to be a Post Office to duck into, which we had noticed Rolf take advantage of the day before when we were spying on him through trackleaders.  We had made a mental note to keep that location in mind in case the weather was still bad the next day, and it turns out that little bit of information was exactly what we needed. We initially planned on sitting under the little covered porch in front of the Post Office, but a lovely woman named Hilary ushered us inside to wait out the rain in comfort.  She offered us some fancy instant coffee packets to use on the road later on, which could be a good source of emergency caffeine if needed. I huddled next to the outlet near the floor and charged my phone, munching on crackers and salami. I didn’t have much food left.

We waited until the rain let up a bit, so when we left it was just a steady drizzle.  As we started the gentle climb towards Idaho I peeked at our stats for the day so far and noticed we had only been averaging a dreadful 11 MPH as opposed to our usual unimpressive 13 from previous days.  Looking closer at my data now from the comfort of our couch, I can see that I didn’t get my heart rate elevated at all the whole day. It was mentally challenging to go so slow, but self preservation and living a sloth life was the goal of the day.

We rode a bridge over the river with threatening skies in the background, and suddenly we were in Idaho.  “I should take a picture of the Idaho sign,” I thought, as I continued on without stopping. This day was just too slow, and it was a tiny lame sign anyways.  Do better, Idaho. It took us 6 whole days to get here and you couldn’t provide any fanfare? The road was suddenly less smooth, since apparently Idaho fills their tarmac with lots of little rocks.  There were also street lights all of a sudden. I’m unsure of why, but this area felt a bit eerie to me. We kept slowly climbing up until we hit Gateway at mile 90.  

Thankfully, we got to stop at a large convenience store and cafe right on the side of the road.  I hadn’t been vigilant about eating a lot today because we were going so slow and so low mileage compared to the previous days.  As I perused the aisles, I noticed I was a little lightheaded and decided to go for my favorite emergency food: hostess zingers. When I’m behind on calories and lacking in appetite, any variety of soft hostess brand dessert is guaranteed to go down easy when nothing else will.  We initially decided not to get anything from the cafe so that we could keep a move on, but I REALLY wanted a corndog. So I purchased a big bag of ice and we sat in the cafe while I scarfed some Zingers, a corndog, a few apples, a beef stick, a candy bar, and some full-sugar gatorade, even though I had already learned the lesson repeatedly in the last 5 years that SUGAR GATORADE IS THE ONE THING I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT TOLERATE DRINKING ON MY BIKE EVER DEAR LORD WOMAN WILL YOU EVER LEARN.

Right after Gateway we set off on a steady 7 mile climb.  It wasn’t too steep, but all of a sudden the fatigue of the last 6 days was catching up to me and I really wanted to fall asleep.  Or maybe it was the 1 million calories I had just consumed in a single sitting. Either way, I wasn’t really feeling this climb and got into a bit of a weird mood where I started worrying about the dangers of being on the road with cars, despite the fact that we hadn’t come across a busy road in three days.  I had a feeling that this was my body telling me I needed to eat even more, so I got off my bike and walked about a quarter mile while shoving milky way bars in my face. I felt a jolt of energy not long after, and was able to make it to the top of the climb. It was not without peril, as I had another ill timed ‘gastric adventure’ at the very top as penance for consuming hundreds of grams of pure sugar within the span of an hour.  Chris was very confused as I threw down my bike and most of my clothing layers and ran far, far away in the opposite direction. I felt amazing afterwards as we carried on down the mountain, so….oh well!

The 15 mile descent into Cambridge was quick and easy, in contrast to our fight towards Baker City two days ago.  On the way down, we gave ourselves a team pep talk about building into strength. We were just happy to be out on the road at all.  The sun broke through the clouds and by the time we arrived in town, it was a beautiful albeit chilly evening. We arrived at 7:30PM instead of 6 or 6:30 like we had planned, because it turns out we were on mountain time – which we hadn’t realized would be the case until Hilary pointed it out earlier at the Post Office in Oxbow.  At the end of the day, my knees were feeling pretty strong, with just little tweaks here and there. 

We would be staying at the Frontier Motel that evening.  We were vigilant about calling for a hotel by midday for small towns, or early evening for bigger cities.  So far, we had always managed to get a room in the town we wanted to hit. The woman at the front desk told us Kymberly said hello.  Apparently she had called ahead to get a room as well, and had found out we’d be there. Wherever I went…there Kym was! So funny that we had spent all spring getting to know each other, and then our TABR journeys ended up being so intertwined.  It was truly meant to be.

I scarfed a lot more food that evening, starting with an apple and beef stick because those were all I had left with me.  Afterwards, I started feeling desperate for calories so I walked to a gas station and immediately downed a bottle of chocolate milk while checking out, and then drank another one on the way back to my room.  Chris was picking up burgers and fries for us for tonight, and I made sure we were stocked up for the morning: doritos and soda for Chris, plus chocolate milk and iced animal crackers for myself. I don’t normally consume dairy in my daily life so this felt very foreign, but it just really seemed like the right thing to do.  When I got back to the room, I filled our bathtub with ice and made myself get in. I had never tried this before and let me tell you – the yowling I was doing during the process could probably be heard from a mile away. The things you do for the team!

I still felt like a bottomless pit, which is probably a good thing, and I vowed to stay on a steady diet of chocolate milk and candy the next day to get back in the eating groove. (Fun fact: Tour de France racers eating between 5000-8000 calories a day. TABR cyclists don’t have nutritionists to help us and don’t have time to count, so we are just advised to eat something every hour regardless of whether we are hungry or not).  Notably, a little later I saw that TABR vet Janie Hayes had commented on my Instagram post for the day advising me that milkshakes and chocolate milk go down easier than food. Great minds think alike, I suppose!  Hives be damned, milk was my life now.  

As I finished my ice bath, Chris arrived with the food.  I tried to multitask eating while getting ready for bed so that I could get to sleep as soon as possible.  I hadn’t experienced as many mystery illness symptoms today, so we excitedly decided to sleep in again tomorrow to continue the healing process.  Maybe, just maybe, this illness would go away on it’s own and I’d be free to finish our trip in peace. We suspected we’d end up staying in Grangeville or Kooskia the next night (either 135 or 155 miles respectively), so we could have another chill day.  As we turned the lights out I felt more hopeful than ever, and I fell asleep almost instantly.  

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Baker City, Oregon to Cambridge, Idaho: 110 Miles