Day 7 Prairie City Oregon to Baker Oregon 66 miles 6000 feet of climbing beautiful national forests pictures to follow

Day 7 66 miles 5300 ' climbing Prairie City to Baker Or through two National Forests

Beautiful scenery Strawberry mt, Malhuer national park. Another wet cold day but majestic view made up for weather.

Tom and Ed, with Strawberry Mt hidden by clouds.

Ed and Jim heading for Baker OR

Huckle Berry Cafe break at top of climb .  Was closed but owner saw us out front and opened it for us

Owner's Grand children having breakfast in the bar, watching TV. Jim made quick friends with them

Huckleberry Cafe with owner in center of pic, will get her name and update this post

Dave met larry at local store, he helped Dave get to RV park, then came by later to sing and play guitar for us. Formerly homeless for 4 years, found the Lord and is now got his life together.

DAY 6 Wendy and Clark Reames who we met that day opened up there home to us in Prairie City OR

Wendy Reames cooking Spaghetti with Elk meat sauce

Day 5 Dayville Or, 84 miles 5000 ' of climbing

We stayed at Fish House RV Park, since tents are not allowed we stayed in this house, built in 

1916. Dave cooked us the trout he caught yesterday, great dinner.

Check uploaded albums for more pictures of the house

Day 4 Prineville 39 miles 1600 ' of climbing

We have visitors!  Ron Tyree, and motorcycle buddies Ralph and Rex, visit us again in Prineville.

Kathy Hurley (Ed's sister in law from Seattle WA) and her friend Jackie from Portland pay a visit bringing home made cookies.

Martha Sargent (friend of Ed and college friend to Ed's wife) visits from Bend OR, and joins us for dinner at Toni's Bar-b-Q. Toni learned of our project and in appreciation provided us all dinner for free! Best ribs any of us ever had! 

Tom Vawters, long time friend of Tom and his wife, pastor who married them, also and author, living in Scottsdale AZ, and Bend OR. He arranged dinner at Toni's.

I will post more on this day later.

Toni's Bar-b-Q

 Dinner at Toni's

group picture with Toni front center

Day 4 and day 5 postings to follow when we hit another location with internet access. It is hard to find time to blog, on our 80 mile days !

Meantime check out our uploaded photos on our photo tab. Today we are leaving Dayville at 11, instead of the usual 7:30, giving us time to blog.

Day 3 Welches to Lake Simtustus near Madras 79 miles 5084 ft climbing

Left Mt Hood RV and immediately  begin 15 mile climb up to Mt Hood Summit. Again we hit moderate amount of rain. The summit is wet and cold, and glad to get on the down hill. Soon rain stops and temperatures warm up. It isn't long before the landscape changes from dense mount pine forest to much drier scenery. The RV park at the lake is 5 miles off Hwy 26,  with steep  climbs of up to 15%.

Simtustus RV park provides us a separate RV trailer for our use, with full amenities and sleeping for 4.

The owner and staff as well as many of the guests took good care of us. One of the guests (a veteran) took Dave out in his boat fishing. Dave caught 8 fish, which we had for dinner when we arrived in Dayville day 5.

 Near Simtustus Lake

Dave ready to go fishing

Pat and Tom on the road

Near the summit of Mt hood

Lake Simtustus

Jim's friend Ron Tyree (sponsor of ours) and his friends Ralph and Rex  on their Harleys and Victory

visit us.

Since our RV was at the entrance, several vets staying at the park came over to visit.

See many more pictures under our PHOTO tab, album 20130624 Uploads

To our followers, click on our Photo tab, to see many more pictures as I create albums. Click on an individual picture in an album to see detail including captions.

Day 2 From St Helens to Welches, at the base of Mt Hood

77 Miles and 1667 feet of climbing.

Our second day was very busy starting with a ride to Vancouver WA VA hospital. After spending 2:30 min at the VA hospital (for me this visit makes the whole adventure worthwhile) we head toward Portland, passing East of Portland, where we met Pat's son and two friends Emily and Liza who road with us for a good portion of our ride taking us on some great bike paths.

On our way to Vancouver WA we crossed several bridges, this one was St John Bridge over the Willamette River.

We were not allowed to take pictures at the VA, but our host took pictures and will send them to me. I will post them when I receive them. At the VA, we were introduced to a group of live-in vets. Tom presented to the group a talk about what we are doing. Jim also discussed his experience in Vietnam. Then we each individually personally introduced our selves to each vet who would related fascinating stories to us. There were also two vets (Hoppi and Ratman dressed in leathers) from Combat Veterans International, a motor cycle group who support the VA and wounded worriors. As we reached out to each vet, they would break out into a big smile, tell us how they appreciated what we were doing, then would related their own stories.

There we vets from WWII, through some of the latest conflicts. I met Ozzie, who is a Tuskege Airman. Some of you may be familiar with the all black fighter squadron, in WWII from the movie.

More stories and pictures to come about this visit.

Dale with grant, who recently had a stroke. He just turned 60 and is planning to run a marathon this year.

Group picture outside VA Hospital

After leaving VA, we met with Pat's son who lives in the Portland area. Liza brought some home made cookies, and we took a little break along the trail.

From left to right front, Liza, Emily, Paul. From left to right back Tom, Ed, Dale, Pat, Jim

Once we reached St Helens, friends of Dale,  Bob, Chief of Police in Battleground WA,  and his wife took us to dinner. Bob and his wife recently moved to this area from the Southern CA.