Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
as in the expression, “What in the name of Sam Hill are you doing in Umatilla?” But I
just looked it up. Turns out Samuel Hill, usually known as Sam, was a lawyer and rail-
road executive in the first half of the twentieth century who was an influential advocate
of better road construction in the Northwest.
Highway 14 turned out to be a great biking road, well paved with very little traffic
and, for part of the way, at least, a lot to look at—the Columbia River, wide and purple-
blue alongside me to the south and to the north wheat fields and ranches, along with
several wind farms, their huge white blades stretching majestically up hills and out to
the horizon. Still, it was a test of a day.
The sun was glaring, and after twenty-five miles I stripped on the side of the road
and changed my shorts. I'd sweated through not just my spandex cycling shorts but the
cloth shell I was wearing over them, so thoroughly that when I took them off I was able
to wring them out.
I was worried, for a time, about water. My bike has three bottle cages, and the bottles
in them were full when I started, but eight hours of exercise in the sun requires more
serious hydrating than that. I was lucky; in spite of the warning sign, there was a filling
station and a small store in the tiny hamlet of Roosevelt, thirty miles or so along, where I
guzzled Gatorade on the spot and bought two quarts to take along with me, bungeed on
top of my rear load.
I was in good shape then, with fifty miles to go, feeling excited the way a workout
can excite you when you're partway through and feeling strong. That lasted for another
