Day 24: Dehydration nation (Council)

Sleep in the latest we've slept, save for a quick trip outside to use the natural loo (no septic up here on the mountain). We wake up to Becca dicing garlic and coffee on the hot pad.

After veggie omelette with eggs fresh from the coop and bacon straight from the butcher, we throw together a bean and quinoa meal to dehydrate. (The first of three meals. Recipes below.)

We sit around the cabin for a couple hours nursing mugs with cold coffee doused with fresh goat milk because it's kinda just nice to sit around. The cabin, the house is lived in. There are plastic and cardboard boxes, empty and full and full of more boxes. There's jarred, jammed, dried, and jellied fruit in every nook, shirts hanging neatly from a pipe in the doorway, a dusty fireplace, a hidden upstairs, wood everywhere, seedlings germinating in the next room, a kitchen table that clearly always has too many things on it to really serve its purpose, but it does well enough. After coffee, we drink homemade Hawthorne kambocha, a fizzing, soothing pink.

Forest has some chores to be responsible for and mushrooms to scout, so Becca, Rachel and I head for the hot springs around 2:30. We probably should have left earlier.

We stop at the store for beer for them and Tums for me. My stomach isn't having it today. In retrospect, it was probably the raw milk I drank that morning. Intolerant of lactose, I can only trick my gastrointestinal system so far. So while goat cheese is workable, the milk, maybe not.

A road that will seem much less windy (that is, with many turns) in the evening when I'm not so sick anymore leads us to the Gold Fork hot springs. A yurt stands guard at the entrance afore three pools of water. The top is the hottest, then a shallow center pool, then three cooler pools connected by breaks in the stonework at the bottom. It's Mother's Day so there are lots of children.

Three hours later, soaked in lithium, we head up to the top for a final hot soak. Becca recognizes Adam, a mushroom hunter, who gives us tips on Morrels on the pool steps, gold beer can in his right hand. Look for the knickknicks (sp?), fairly slippers, white firs, and west-facing slopes. He leaves before we're ready. We eat the food we brought: triangle tortilla chips  and two bananas, the dry off and drive home.

Recipes:

Mean Beans

• 25 oz of black beans
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 cobs of corns
• 1 package of black bean seasoning from the Boise Coop
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 tbsp chopped ginger
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 1/2 of citrus fruit of choice (we used orange)
• Chili/cayenne to taste
• 1 cup quinoa

Soften the onions in some olive oil. Mix in the seasoning of choice with 2/3 cup of water. Drain the beans and add them to the mix. Or don't add the water and don't drain the beans. Let sit for a bit, maybe 5-10 minutes. Free the kernels from the cob straight into the beans. Let them all get to know each other while you start the quinoa as dictated on package in a separate pot. 10 minutes before the quinoa is ready, add the garlic and ginger. Then when the grains are ready, mix the pots. Dehydrate for 12-20 hours at 125 degrees Farhenhei. I think.

Nuts for Thai peanuts

• 1/2 or more of a jar of peanut butter (I used skippy cause we got it at a weak market in Payette and hadn't touched it)
• 1 package of firm tofu
• 12 oz can of lentils
• 1/2 a large onion
• 1/2-1 red pepper
• 2-4 tbsp of soy sauce (I have no idea actually, I just load it in, mix and taste)
• 1 tsp or more of cayenne pepper
• Juice from some kind of citrus, or in our case, 1/2 chopped mango
• 2 tbsp of chopped fresh ginger
• Salt and pepper to taste

Soften the onions in olive oil and a tablespoon of soy sauce. Add the tofu, undrained. Drain and add the lentils. Add the PB. Let it get a little warm, then mix it all together. Chop and toss in the peppers, cayenne, ginger and mango. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook on low heat for a while, however much time you've got to let the flavor soak in (really I recommend a slow cooker for this but do what ya can do). Once everything is soft, taste it. Taste good? Good. Taste bland like peanuts? Add more soy sauce and a little more ginger/citrus. Dehydrate at 125F for ~15 hours.

Day 20: Oh the people you'll meet (Juntura hot springs to the top of Vale)

We'd stayed up with Tom later than we'd stayed up the whole trip, so we slept in until 9 and woke up to his van driving down the dirt road. He left his business card tucked into the bungee on my solar panel. 

We couldn't leave without at least trying to get to the hot springs. We walked around the hill on a dirt road that led to the bank of the Malheur on the other side. Only between us and the "island" with the hot springs was a good twenty feet of mild rapids, a water temperature around 40 degrees. We aimlessly kind of stared at the river for a while before I decided that the good things in life don't come easy and we took the plunge. The water came up to out waists in the middle, and the downstream rush tried to carry us off with each step. But we made it across, hand-in-hand. And it's a perfect hot spring in that island there.  Dug out a little so it's deep enough to  sit and submerge but still a little wild. We watched the cows graze and the hills stand still and the sky change color until finally we figured we'd better wade back. Plus we were hungry. The way back was easier and not as cold as I remembered.

We heated up some Quaker Oats then packed up and headed out to the road. We didn't have a specific destination in mind. Juntura is kind of the entrance to the Oregon canyon lands on highway 20, so we spent most of our day with these touring walls squeezing and flowing the road around broad curves. ​

We agreed to meet at various mile signs, with Rachel going ahead. ​In he morning, I was stopped by a guy in a red pick up who had seen us riding the previous day. I had stopped to pump some water from the creek, since we were running low, but he had a bunch of bottles in the back and gave us 4 liters. Then, ten miles before our meeting point after lunch, I earned the first flat tire of the trip. I pulled off to the side of the road (butted up against the canyon wall) and had just unloaded the bike when an outback pulled up, piled with bikes and other gear. Turns out, the lady was a bike mechanic from West Yellowstone. She fixed my flat in two minutes flat. Unbelievable timing. I pedaled on to Rachel, but hit road construction pretty soon after. One of the guys in charge, Scott, pulled up with his flatbed and said I'd better get on since I was moving too slow (ouch). He ended up driving me all the way to Rachel, since I'd lost so much time earlier. And about a half hour later, he honked at us from behind in his jeep and gave us extra lights to use for our trip. How de-light-ful!

We toyed with the idea of asking a homestead if we could camp on their property, but neither of us felt much like socializing. We ended up on this magnificent ridge overlooking Vale, and into Idaho. Dinner was tough to cook in the wind, but the sunset was worth every frustrated flame, and the wind died down soon after. 

Day 19: Two little hills (Burns to the Juntura hot springs)

Most mornings I have it together but this morning I'm a mess. My gloves and glasses have disappeared into the dark and foreign depths of my panniers. At least with a real stove, Rachel cooks up some real protein for breakfast, maybe the eggs and sausage will jumpstart some neurons. 

It doesn't. I walk to Safeway across the street and it takes me like half an hour to pick up hot chocolate and pick out some ziplock bags. 

On our way out of town, I see a sign for peach pie and can't help myself. I love pie. This is also the pie tour of America and the limp pumpkin in Alturas was a bland disappointment. 

The lady at the pie shop says we only have two little hills to worry about. Douglas and Lowenda, a couple in their eighties, finish off cold coffee in ceramic mugs and shake their heads about how burned out Burns has become since the mill closed in 1980. Then they tell me the story again.

Right out of Burns we're sailing (we must have had a tailwind, we averaged like 18 mph) and see a red outback with a bunch of bikes on top. 

At this point we haven't seen a floor pump since Sacramento three weeks ago, so when we see it pulled up ahead, we figured we stop and asked. Mmm we rode up all excited to say hello but then they're making out in the front seat and the guy looks up at us kinda horrified. We sped off feeling pretty red in the cheeks too. 

At the first rest stop into Stinking Water, though, there's a car with a pretty-looking bike mounted on top so I dropped in for take two. Turns out, Colin had taking Adventure Cycling's Northern Tier across the country a couple years back. So we talked for a good while and he was kind enough to donate his mini pressure gauge to the cause. 

My knee started acting up for the first time the whole trip. Just a pain on the inside of my right kneecap. We'll see. 

Stinking Water and Drinking Water are definitely not two little hills. They are very large, very steep ones. The views of the valleys, their perfect rows and pristine tractors, those were good though. The downhill was almost worth it. 

Despite the winds/grades, I signed a lease in Ithaca along the way! Finally have my own apartment, so if you're ever in the area, come hang out.

It was getting late in the evening when we pulled up to Juntura to fill up our water and find out directions to the hot springs. The last two miles were all headwind and no fun, and we took the wrong turnoff the first time so we ended up going on this dirt road all the way around the outside of the river.

I bumpy road kicked a shirt I had hanging off the back of my bicycle, so I ran to go grab it while Rachel went to find the actual entrance. On my way back, I ran into Tom, an older, fit guy who crossed the cracked and blocked off concrete bridge we were avoiding. He helped me carry my bike across and then Rachel and I played tag trying to find each other, but eventually got all the bikes and gear onto the correct side of the river (future campers/ hot spring goers, take the highway exit furthest from Juntura, it's a gravel road). 

A real iron skillet! 

Tom offered to cook us dinner and we were a little wary but are learning to accept the abrupt kindness of strangers. And he had an incredible bounty in his camper van. He was on his way home from a tour of Oregon and California, and the ex-heart surgeon-turned-distiller was something of a foodie too. So he fed us dried meats, pungent cheese, raw almonds, fresh bread and then fried up some home-grown potatoes. Plus he had some of the best lettuce I've ever tasted. I don't know if I've been starved of vegetables or something but this lettuce tasted sweet and full, texture soft but still with some crunch. It was perfect. We stayed up until 1 am with him, talking and talking about politics and his kids and food. The moon rose and lit up the whole inlet. 

Rumor has it, the hot springs are haunted, but bellies and hearts full, we slept easy and late. 

Days 13-16: Out of California, into wherever we are (Alturas to Lakeview)

Three days and four nights. In this tiny little town with three 20-foot tall Cowboys and 25 churches for 2000 people. We won't even spend that long in Yellowstone or New York. But at least we made it to Oregon?

Why are these pictures different sizes 

We knew we wanted to spend one more night -- down the road a couple miles was Hunter's Hot Springs -- and this is the Unofficial Official Hot Spring and Brewery Tour of America the Beautiful (UOHSBTAB for short). So we went to Safeway and bought like 90 lbs of food and gallons and gallons of water and toddled down the road to Hunter's soft, soothing, mineral-rich swimming pool. Those rooms are nice! And only $60. The hot springs are actually in a converted swimming pool and they were only hot the first night, but they have the best view of sunsets, baby geese, and the only geyser in Oregon. Old Perpetual shot out of the ground when Harry Hunter drilled into the ground while developing a health resort. Contrary to Wikipedia, it is indeed erupting every 90 seconds nowadays, unless you believe in commercial conspiracy theories.

Long story short, the hot springs were so nice, and the rest so sorely needed, we decided to stay another day. We had to catch up on the blog and the website for you after all! And we were tired. And relaxed. We'd leave Saturday, bright and early, to start the 2-day 130 mile trek across the waterless Oregon outback. 

Except Friday night I lay down exhausted and three hours later my eyes were still plastered wide open.  Neither Rachel nor I could sleep. I think we maybe combined got 8 hours total. Scratch leaving early for the desert. 

We tried to hitchhike out on the main road all morning. A couple of folks pulled over but no one was going that way or had room for us. A scraggly vet in a blue Land Rover pulled over and talked to us for 45 minutes about peeing on a bear and other adventures in the Bureau of Land Management. Eventually, we arranged for a craigslist ride to pick us up at 4 pm, hung up our hammocks on four perfect trees outside the hot springs and kicked it. 

Um the Craiglist guy, Zac, never showed. He had terrible grammar anyways.

So that evening we found ourselves at Doug's and he invited his son over (nuclear physicist reformed vet tech). They talked for like 9 hours and we weren't always sure what to believe, but hell, the stories were as wild as the west used to be and Doug fed us key lime pie and gave us a roof to sleep under and we were eminently thankful. 

We woke up with the sun on Sunday morning and headed into the desert.