Alright, made it through the first day of the tour! Tomorrow has more climbing, but today was supposed to be the longest time in the saddle.

We started off fairly promptly, and immediately went over (or is it under?) a covered bridge. Anne was very excited, although less so when I pointed out that the sign said this particular structure was built in 1966.

Then it was off to Aufderheide Dr, aka NF-19. There was a fairly gentle climb up to Cougar Dam and Cougar Reservoir, which made for our first sightseeing stop.

We followed along the reservoir for a while, then started on some rollers generally up. I knew we should eat lunch before it changed to a steady climb, and Anne found a little side road with a bridge for us to sit on.

Then up up up to the top. The climb wasn’t too bad — maybe our training is paying off. One ride report I had read claimed it had a 12% section at the top. It certainly didn’t feel anything like that. At the top is Box Canyon, which seems like a funny name for a meadow. It certainly was interesting to walk a few steps away from the thick wall of trees into a grassy, flowery clearing, complete with some historic log cabin.

Then it was time to go down. Well, sort of. There was a short down bit (complete with squeals from Ruth), but most of the descent was something like 1% down, mixed with 1% up. So it didn’t really feel like a descent. I had been looking forward to coasting the rest of the way.

The road was very straight today. I don’t think we had a single switchback, and almost all the turns were gentle. Up until the end, there was almost no traffic, maybe one car every five or ten minutes, plus a few motorcycle caravans. We only saw one pair of bikers, close to the end, and they weren’t touring.

Anne was so excited about descending without dealing with sharp blind turns that she offered to take the trailer down. So she ended up with it all day. Yay Anne!

The road was pretty heavily forested, and we were never far from one river or another. Every mile or so, there was a waterfall coming down the hill to feed the river. Some were pretty big, and some you could only hear. In the morning, it sounded like a nature CD you’d put on to help you relax. Rushing water, birds calling, an occasional rustling on leaves. In the afternoon, the wind picked up, whistling the trees. Sometimes the rivers were loud enough that we couldn’t talk.

We were on NF-19 almost all day, and the little side roads were named NF-19xx, starting at about 1985 and counting down from there. I amused myself by pretending we were in some kind of time vortex, with exits for different years as we went further and further back.

Oakridge, our destination for tonight, is a small town, but instead of being quaint, it just kind of feels decayed. In the three blocks to our motel, we passed three permanently closed restaurants and a couple of empty storefronts.

Ruth did pretty well today, at least until near the end. By then, though, Mommy and Daddy were wearing out, too. She knows how to buckle herself into the seat now. We do sometimes have to bribe her with food to get the helmet on. She enjoyed looking at the river, and dipping her toes in with Mommy.

Animal sightings: a deer family (according to Anne, I wasn’t around the corner yet), some kind of eagle, assorted other birds, some flat snakes, and many dragonflies, butterflies, and less attractive insects circling us as we made our way down the road.

Mechanical problems: when we stopped at some point, Anne’s bike fell over, and one side of her helmet visor snapped off. We use our helmet visors to hold mirrors, so it’s actually pretty important. We ended up using a zip tie to hold the visor, which seems to be working,