The Longest Century

Hood River, OR to Crow Butte, WA

104 miles

A fuel-laden train exploded in Mosier a week ago and destroyed, among other things, my chance to enjoy a breathtaking run of the old highway -- a road that rides like a soft, black ribbon unskeining through the Gorge's cherry orchards -- that, any other week of the year, is open exclusively to cyclists and pedestrians. Though signs at the base of the ascent to the old highway warned of the closure, I thought I might get a pass with my charm and/or guile. The ODOT crew member manning the entrance at the summit was immune to both and unapologetically sent me back down the hill with only one option: the 84. 

But east of Hood River -- a town sitting so majestically in the heart of the Cascades you couldn't throw a cat without hitting some stunning view of Mt. Hood or Mt. Adams -- Portland recreationists start to start to disappear, the 84's shoulder widens heartily, and it's all business as we head out of the Gorge.  A tailwind carried me 20 miles to The Dalles, at which point I hung a hard left, into the wind, to cross the Columbia toward Washington's highway 14, which runs parallel to the 84.

I'll gladly take a mile or two of comically intense headwinds if it means 102 miles of tailwind. And on this little stretch, which took about as long to ride as the preceding 20 miles, some cartoon villain had scattered tacks and nails across the narrow shoulder.  Even as I cursed aloud the cruel road and struggled just to maintain balance, I knew that once I made my hard right onto the 14 this hellish force working so hard against me would become my salvation. And indeed, I even let the wind crest me on some of the 80 subsequent miles as I sailed to my destination.

I faced the wind from the wrong direction only once more today -- riding out to this campsite, which sits on an island in the Columbia -- but I was too esorcelled by the Pelicans to mind.