Day 5: 51 miles, Huntington to Baker City

After a third night of rain and having to pack up a wet tent, we decided to think of other plans once we got back to the start. The Cycle Oregon tour was planning to take us up to La Grande where we planned to be on Friday, then a ride back to Baker City. But my friends and I missed not seeing Joseph and the Wallowas that the fires blocked us from. We could also pull the plug and just head home to Portland Thursday night.

I quickly concocted a plan: we’d ride to the car, drive to Joseph and try staying in a new hip hotel I backed on Kickstarter called the Jennings Hotel for a couple days. If we felt up for it, we might do rides of our own out there. A quick email and it was set — two rooms in the hotel were done and if we didn’t mind construction debris in the other rooms we were set.

The ride to Baker City was fairly hellish, with strong headwinds, sporadic rain, and tons of climbing. I barely took any photos because I was head down, drilling out the miles and just wanting to get into warm clothes and into my car.

The cream on top of the shit sandwich of the day’s ride was breaking a spoke about 10 miles before the end, and later breaking two more just as I finished. A couple days before someone crashed into me at a lunch stop, tacoing my rear wheel a bit that once trued, put extra tension on the spokes. With so many broken spokes my bike riding for the week was officially over.

We got to Joseph in a couple hours and we were blown away by the scenery. The hotel is going to be amazing and I got the one super polished nice room to myself.

The hotel is run by a nice guy named Greg and he’s got big plans for a total renovation that will end up being a 9-room really great hotel. I can’t wait to see it in a year or two when it’s fully done. It’s a perfect place to stay in a beautiful region of Oregon.

The other nice find was the Lostine Tavern in a neighboring town. Amazing food, good beer selection, and great cocktails. I love that people are being pioneers in far-off beautiful places, buying up old buildings to rehab and make into cool businesses. I really hope the small amount of tourism out here can support them for many years to come because I plan to revisit this area of the state often.