Woke up early in the rain, approx 06:15. I looked down at the tent that had been hastily erected last night in the rain, had let a bunch of water in onto my sleeping bag. With the thought of going back to sleep banished from my mind I decided to wake Brad up instead.
My brother, Charles, had faired even worse. He'd wrapped a leaky, he found out, survival blanket around his sleeping bag and got soaked. We all got packed up and hit on the road, the new plan, get to Klamath Falls and get a motel.
At 11:00 the weather was still cold and cloudy, the road was straight but the wind was still in our faces, it was up one hill and right back down again (repeat). When we finally got out of the hills and onto the plain (Klamath Basin?) the wind picked up and it just got more demoralizing.
We rode past lots of pretty scenery and as the sun burned off the clouds more and more hand painted signs staying nasty things about US Fish and Game and the Endangered Species Act started to appear. By the time the sun was out the signs were completely silly with bad grammar and phrases like "promises broken" and "greatest water theft of all time". Every store window in the towns in the valley had "We support our farmers" in it. By the way they were jumping on the bandwagon you'd think that someone had killed all their firstborn not diverted the water to keep the fish from becoming extinct. I have very little sympathy for their cause. The fish were here first, the "theft" was the water from the fish in the first place to irrigate their fields.
In Klamath Falls we pulled into Motel 6 and got a room. We kept the bikes out of sight and snuck them into the room to prevent it from being an issue.
Across the street was Stage Coach Pizza. If you're in Klamath Falls I can highly recommend it. We made a mockery of their one trip salad bar, picture a plate with salad piled to a 45* angle, at $1.90 that was the deal of the trip.
Tomorrow we go find a bike shop get Brad's bike looked at and pick up some gear then it's off to Crater Lake.
andrew
Dave Torch was the winner of our "Yes these are references to the Oregon Trail video game" contest.
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