Blown Away

Thursday, September 14. Umatilla, OR to West Roosevelt, WA

After leaving the Desert River Inn, we crossed back into Washington on a bike path across the Columbia River. The wind had gotten stronger through the night, but had calmed down to about 20mph in the morning. So it was windy as we set out, and the winds just increased as the day went on. We rode next to the Columbia River in the desert landscape all day, alternating between adding and shedding layers as the temperatures rose and fell.

There are train tracks on both sides of the Columbia, and about a half-dozen of them went by us throughout the day. The wind was so loud, though, that the sound of the engines was drowned out! The last train to pass us on the Washington side was heading east, and he saw us and tooted the train's whistle in greeting.

We stopped for lunch in Paterson, and while we were inside, a small squall arose and sprinkled a light shower on us. The temperatures dropped noticeably, and I put on my rain jacket in case the showers continued. For about the next 45 minutes, we noticed that the wind had changed direction. What had been a strong WSW wind was now a NNE wind, which was a little easier to ride in. We got about 10 miles behind us when the winds changed BACK to the WSW wind, and we were back to battling the cross-winds again. This day was wearing us out.

We made only one stop after lunch, mostly because there was no place for us to get any shelter from the wind. I had picked up a package of M&M's at our lunch stop, and we shared them just to get the sugar rush. Because we were only able to make about 8mph, the day was waning and we still had 25 miles to go after our lunch break.

By the time we reached North Roosevelt at around 7:00pm, I was doing anything to keep from thinking about the wind and the way my knees were hurting. At the restaurant in North Roosevelt, we stopped for dinner, and met a young trucker who offered to put us up for the night in the cab of his truck (with a DVD player), and then transport us and our gear to Camas in the morning. A very tempting offer, but like the fools we are, we declined.

At just before 8:00pm, we turned on our headlights and rode to the West Roosevelt park in the dark. As we were trying to feel our way to the tent camping area, we met Greg, a 60-year-old windsurfer who had just traveled here from Greenville, SC. He gave us the flashlight tour of the park, pointing out good campsites and warning of the nightly sprinkler onslaught.

We chose to camp on the point, setting up camp by the waning light of my headlight. Laying down, snuggled up in our silk cocoons and wrapped in the human stuff sack was the nicest thing I'd done all day. During the night I heard a few trains in the distance, heard the sprinklers start up all around us, and heard a light rain gently falling on the rainfly of our tent. In the middle of the night, I awoke and looked out the tent to see the moon shining on the river and about a half-billion stars in the sky. It was quiet; there was no wind--we should have gotten up and started riding toward Biggs right then.