Umatilla, Oregon

NOTE:  we prepared 2 blog entries yesterday for Dayton.  The first dealt with our arrival into town and the second with our time exploring the town.

Cycling out of Dayton this morning we stopped at Ray’s Diner, the only place in town open at our early hour.  Ray fixed us breakfast and served us coffee for the start of our long day.  Dayton is a large agriculture area where the primary crop appears to be wheat.  If we paid closer attention to Wally, during yesterday’s ride, we could have identified the other crops.  Farming continued to fill the landscape as we headed westward.  About half way to Walla Walla, Washington we saw a fenced pasture with lots of horses and one camel.  Of course we had to take a picture of the camel before moving on.  As we approached Walla Walla we noticed lots of wind turbines on the ridge south of town.  As we cycled west they continued for 25 miles.  There must have been thousands of those turbines.  Another interesting thing about Walla Walla is that Joe’s wife told us that they grow great onions here.  As we headed out of town we passed many onion farms and watched the workers harvest some of the fields.  The smell of fresh onions permeated the air.

While we did not have a direct head wind we were still challenged by the southerly winds that seemed the strongest when we felt the weakest.  Surprisingly, they were not so bad once we got to the Columbia River Gorge and entered Oregon.  We cycled down river and got to enjoy the Union Pacific trains as they raced by.  We also enjoyed the smell from the many onion trucks that passed by.  After each truck, Jeff had to mention his fantasy of having those fresh onions on a grilled hot dog with mustard.  Food fantasies were to be expected since there was no where to eat after leaving Walla Walla and we were getting tired of our bananas and trail bars.

If this blog sounds a little choppy and we have more misspellings than usual, it is because we cycled 85 miles today and were on the road from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m.  We are exhausted!

Today’sPhotos

Today’s Map