The next morning, Debbie and Brian stayed late at the Blueberry Muffin cafe while the rest of us took off. In a couple hours, Dennis and John had outdistanced us, and again, it was just Merrianne and myself.

Suddenly, the chilly desert morning flashed into penetrating heat. We understood how the terrain could be so dry. Merrianne and I decided to take a detour to the John Day fossil beds, mainly because Merrianne had to go to the bathroom.

The visitors’ center was an unlikely oasis in the desert – green grass, shade trees, a southern plantation house. At a shaded picnic table, we had our lunch of apples, crackers, Vienna sausage, and deviled Spam. We also picked the earwigs out of our grapes and ate them.

It’s amazing how quickly one’s strength returns with a cold, large size drink. I drank a big one at every town, and still didn’t go to the bathroom all day.

After lunch it got muggy. I wanted to stop at Dayville, but oddly, Merrianne wanted to go on to Mt. Vernon. Probably she wanted to camp with Debbie and Brian again, who were supposed to be staying there that evening. The road to Mt. Vernon (which isn’t actually a mountain) was flat, but the 23 miles seemed awfully long in the scorching heat. I drained both my oversize bottles, and couldn’t manage to do better than ten or twelve miles per hour. About halfway, some heavy clouds rolled in. It was as if the very hand of God was shielding us from that merciless sun!

It’s amazing how quickly one’s strength returns with a cold, large size drink. I drank a big one at every town, and still didn’t go to the bathroom all day.

As we were relaxing outside the general store in Mt. Vernon, Debbie rode up. She looked devastated from the heat.

“Where’s Brian?” Merrianne asked.

“I don’t think Brian and I will be riding together, anymore,” Debbie stammered, choking back tears.

I excused myself to get something in the store, letting the expert (Merrianne) talk with Debbie.

Everyone thought that Debbie and Brian were the perfect couple. Debbie wanted to be a couple. The problem was, Brian didn’t. It reminded me of Pee Wee and Dottie. What was Brian’s problem?? Debbie was a wonderful person, and pretty, too. And women who cycle are hard to find. Apparently, Debbie was encouraged when Brian agreed to ride across the country with her, but couldn’t bear to be near him if they weren’t more than friends. Brian liked her. But only as a friend. Debbie decided that it was too painful being around him, so decided to break off traveling together.

At the campground at Mt Vernon, it was drizzling steadily. It never did rain hard, but neither did it stop. We also noticed that they had the sprinklers on, in typical bureaucratic fashion.

I met a man at the information post, mentioning to him that the church in Dayville was a hostel to bikers.

“What!! What’s this world coming to! That’s all we need, some goddamned convent that’s hostile to bikers. Why, can’t a guy…”

I had to stop him and explain that I meant “hotel.”

Mosquitoes at the campground were vicious. I realized that we had seen more species of insects in the past week than we had in the past year in the San Francisco Bay area. We quickly girded ourselves in repellent, but not before I got two bites on my privates.

That evening, Debbie came to the realization that she was suddenly alone on the trip, so resolved to sprint away early the next morning to try to catch Brian.