April 26, 2000, Wednesday

We left the motel in Rufus, about 9:00 AM and went to Jack's for breakfast. We both had pancakes that contained fruit in the batter, I had an apple cake and Mary Kay had a blueberry cake. We then got on the interstate and Boardman, OR. There are no other roads except the interstate and the road is fairly level except for a couple of hills. However, we fought a head wind again for 54 miles. Out of 150 miles from Troutdale, to Boardman, we had head winds for more than 100 miles. Fighting a head wind on a bike is like going up hill all day and never getting relief by going on the flat or down hill. Even if you do get on a downhill, you must keep working just to maintain your speed. If you do not, the bike just slows down even though the bike is going downhill. We stopped for lunch at Arlington, OR and eventually reached Boardman, OR at 4:30 PM. As you can see from reading this it was a hard day and not much fun.