The following morning, we had an incredible tailwind, and screamed past McKenzie Bridge at over 20 miles per hour. Then we hit the climb to McKenzie pass. It was only moderately steep, but long. At this point, on our second day of real riding, Merrianne was firmly convinced that we were the only ones on the road, and that we would never meet any other cyclists. Just then, Brian Hamilton appeared, cranking up the hill in steady rhythm. He and his touring partner, Debbie Ford, were both from the Chicago area.

We stopped at a campground to look for water and take a restroom break. It turned out that there was no water there, but a van stopped and gave us some. The woman in the van opened the pit toilet door while Merrianne was inside. I didn’t know that Merrianne had such a loud scream.

The top of McKenzie pass was windy and cool. The lava fields were a familiar sight to someone from Hawaii, but must have appeared pretty stark to Brian and Debbie. Descending was fast and treacherous, due to the large amount of gravel that had been scattered for snow traction.

The four of us camped in Sisters, where there was an authentic country produce store.

There were no showers at the city park, but the caretaker gave us cardboard disks so we could stop up the sinks.

“Almost as good as a shower,” he proudly remarked.

We all made fun of it, but one by one, we eventually conceded that a sink shower was better than none at all.