Wheatland Ferry Ride

You know it's going to be a hard bike ride when the wind pushes your car door back into your leg as your trying to get out in the parking lot. Parked at Champoeg State Park (picture) to start the ride. Champoeg is one of the first settlements in Oregon and is the location for a meeting that resulted in the settlers voting to join the United States instead of England and try to become a state. There's a mural and information inside the visitor's center. Champoeg Park makes a great base for riding because there are lots of options over flat country roads. My friend Kevin and I started out into the wind- I hate wind- and crawled along at 13-17 MPH all the way to the Wheatland Ferry at about 18 miles. Rode the ferry and rode up the slight hill to Maud Williamson State Park to use the bathroom and that was 20 miles out, so we turned around ands rode the ferry back over the river (lower picture). The ride back to Champoeg was great, soared along at 21-23 MPH and towards the ends I picked a couple of trees and rode 30+ starting at one and held it that fast until the second tree. Good race practice, should be doing that all the time probably. After the ride, we got the bikes in the Jeep and it started to rain, so off to find some food. The small town of Butteville had a really nice cafe/coffee shop, but it was closed, which on a Saturday afternoon probably means it's out of business. Drove to the small town of Donald and they had one cafe and it was also closed. Kept going and ended up in the town of Aurora which is an antique shop haven. Found a little antique/cafe/coffee shop and got the last table open for a good sandwich and latte.