Transcontinental in Retrospect May 10
Day 9/May 10
We spent some of the day on the Interstate again, but were very happy that there were some road options today. We got off and took the back way in to Umatilla. The landscape is still rather scrubby and we miss the trees. There’s no finding shade around here.
It took some time finding a place to stay because there were several construction projects going on in the area. We finally found a spot that was reasonably close to the bridge that we would cross to get back into Washington.We knew that there was a pedestrian bridge, but didn’t see directions to it, so we headed to the visitor center to get directions from them. If you are neither a cyclist nor a pedestrian, these details are meaningless, so not on your radar. This was the case with the tourist office. Although very helpful with anything that we asked, they had no clue where to access the pedestrian/cycling way across the bridge.
We left to see if we could find it ourselves and came across it just 1/4 mile from the tourist office. Just so that they could help future cyclists, we went back to the tourist office and told them where the access spot for cyclists was. It wasn’t well-marked at all.
After we left the office, we walked back along the trail and on to the grocery store. We found a restaurant that served freedom fries, something that we didn’t realize still existed. Oddly enough, this restaurant had many photos of French landmarks. Go figure.
This was our last day of riding in Oregon. One state down and a lot to go.