Central Oregon

We made a quick breakfast, then headed off to Eugene to pick-up bikes for our trip today.  We stopped at Paul’s Bickeyle Way of Life which is really close to the University of Oregon to pick up 4 hybrid bikes that we would ride today.

The trail that we took can be found here.  It is called the Covered Bridges Scenic Byway, since we don’t normally bike such long distances, we decided to start at the Mosby Creek Trailhead. Another reason we started there because it shortened the distance and we didn’t miss out on any covered bridges.

Ready set go!

The path went around Dorena Lake, which was beautiful!  Would have loved to boat and tube on that!

We missed the turn for the loop and had continued on the bike path a little ways to Dorena, so that added a few extra miles to the trip.

The second half of the trip was on the road, which was a bit intimidating around the bends and up/down hills.

We stopped to eat our packed lunch and to get our last glimpse of the lake.  We had about 5 miles to go and boy where those a tough 5 miles.  The incline on part of it was so much ( for about 1/2 mile) that Josh, Sarah, and I choose to walk our bikes up the steep incline but Dustin keep trucking it!  We met him and the top and coming down was much more fun!

Throughout the journey we got to see four covered bridges over the 25.8 miles, boy were we tired!  We headed back to Eugene to return the bike rack and the bikes.

Then we checked out the Saturday Market there. This was a Market like we’ve never seen before. All of the farmers had organic fruits and veggies or raised their crops in an organic way. We got there as they were closing, but we were still able to pick up some snacks for the rest of our trip. Among the things we got were fresh raspberries, sugar snap peas, green beans, sour kraut, and we split a frozen fruit smoothie.

After the market, we headed back to our guest house to pick up our luggage, so we could continue our journey.

Our next stop was Salem, Oregon to visit with Dustin’s family. We stayed with his great-Aunt and Uncle, Ed & Shirley. They had some of their children over (Dustin’s second cousins) for dinner, dessert and fellowship. It was great to catch up with them, they were so hospitable and welcoming.  It was nice to hear about their favorite parts of the central oregon area too.

Once everyone left, we headed right to bed. We were exhausted from all of the pedaling. Tomorrow we will make it to Washington!