This week has covered a full range of emotions for me. Total sadness with the loss of Solo to a heart full of hope and peace in response to all the work total strangers have been doing to find me places to stay along the way. I should say former strangers and now friends.
My last entry was had me ending up with Jody and Mark, who not only took great care of me, but made sure that I was taken care of through several more towns. I left Kimberly and headed to Dayville where I stayed at the C Bar C Bed and Breakfast and Kelly took excellent care of me and the girls there. It is a lovely rustic B and B where I had my first night in a bed since the first week of this trip and upon seeing me gimpying around after my 25 mile ride Kelly insisted I take a long soak in the tub (I am sure it had nothing to do with how bad I smelled . . . really). She also got up early to make me breakfast for my next day.
So we headed out with the 2 cranky ladies who grumped and grouched at each other for at least half the trip and at one point I could have sworn they got into a shut up no you shut up argument, it made for a tense ride on a long day. The Next town was Mt Vernon, I lovely town where I was to stay with Reena Winfrey (no relation to Oprah) and I discovered Delightful's achilles heal . . . wooden bridges. To get to Reena's we had to cross a long wooden bridge and poor Pei Pei would have nothing to do with it. After 8 attempts I finally called Reena and she came down with her trailer and we hauled the stubborn princess up to the barn where they had a lovely night in a paddock and after sampling the Silver Spurs bacon cheese burger (Emma is still number 1) I camped in the barn with the raccoons.
The next morning I was up at 5 am to get the girls ready to be hauled back over the bridge and we were off to John Day. In John Day I met up with John Aasness who had arranged for the girls to stay at the Fair Grounds, many thanks to Stephanie and Vickie for all their help, and I stayed with John and his lovely wife, Diane. I visited with the Chamber of Commerce and went to the Ranch and Rodeo museum for pictures and an interview with the Blue Eagle Herold. I have to say, the museum is impressive, and I would recommend that everyone that visits John Day stop in and go through. The Rodeo pictures alone are well worth the trip.
After a restful night in John's shop, and a delicious breakfast prepared by him I was on my way to Prairie City. On my way out of town, I was rooted on by a friendly gentleman who turned out to be the husband of my next contact, one Bonnie Nance. She drove out to meet me and after dropping the horses off at her barn, took me out to sample the local Bacon Cheese burger at the Hitchin Post, which was good, but still only second to the amazing Emma's burger in Spray. It was then home to spend the evening with Bonnie and her cheerleader husband, Ken.
This brings us up to today, a day of mountain climbing, up Dixie to the pass and down to Austin House for Dinner. This trip was beautiful, it was a lovely day with all sorts of weather, Sun, rain and even thunder storms and I am happy to be back in the forests of Oregon's mountain ranges again. The Highway runs next to several raging creaks that zig and zag under the highway and the pass is about 5200 feet and there was actually some snow there when I passed. I stopped to see the remains of the Stump Jumper rail road and marvel at the will it must have taken to build it through that heavy forested area. The owners of the Austin House welcomed me, having been called by both Jody and Bonnie, Christy and Jeff made me a great burger, though still not better then Emma's, and let me have free run of their computer. As always I am amazed at the sheer generosity and kindness of people to a total stranger and every time I meet a new person, I find my faith in people growing.
So tonight I stay here and then its off to Unity and beyond.
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