August 21 - Painted Hills National Monument

Lodging: Baker City

What an amazing state Oregon is! I got to experience it all today- a quaint town with great burgers and a bakery, stunning red-painted hills, awesome roads, and an eerie back road through smoke on a twisting mountain top. Headed East from Bend on Highway 26 to the small town of Mitchell. Had a great burger and fries at a small brewing company and picked up some freshly baked banana bread to go at a local bakery. Then headed to the Painted Hills. Had to hike two miles on gravel (round trip) to see the overlook. But it was totally worth it! I got a video that really captures the grandeur of the gently sloping multi-colored hills. Amazing! Then I took the back way into Baker City. Instead of going from Highway 26 to Highway 7, I went via State Highway 245. In some ways this was my favorite part of the day. On the almost 40 mile stretch I only saw one car and that was at the end. It was surreal because I was driving this deserted windy road through the mountain tops with smoke in the air and burnt trees everywhere. The road was overall in great condition with lots of twists and turns. There were almost no signs of civilization - just the stark landscape and several deer. One group of five deer ran right in front of me. Had to stop the bike suddenly and almost dumped it. Thank goodness I didn’t because who knows when I would have been able to get it back up. Tomorrow I head to Hells Canyon.