We woke up to car doors slamming and a large group of people making a run to the toilets this morning. We made our way out of the back of the truck and got back on the road, looking for a quieter place to make breakfast. We found another pull off on the highway next to a creek that looked suitable. We made coffee, sausage and eggs again. The final stretch of road between us and Bend went by quickly. I sat in the car catching up on blog posts while Andrew stayed focused on the road listening to music. We filled the truck with diesel and tried to get a game plan together. We thought we might as well hit up the Goodwill while we were here! Once we finished there, goodies in hand, we headed to Cogwild; a bike touring company a few good friends recommended us to. I had been in touch with one of the owners via Facebook for a few days, so it was nice to finally meet in person. Mel and Lev are the owners and a really nice, friendly and hospitable group of people. They were more than helpful on trail recommendations and openly talked with us about ideas for Mulberry Gap. They lent us a map to use and we headed to the North Fork Trail in the Deschutes National Forest. Andrew went out on the bike to ride the 10 mile loop, I couldn’t join him because of the bent chain rings, so I hiked up to one of the 8 waterfalls on the trail. It wasn’t a far hike, but I had a few things I wanted to work on with my free time. Andrew made it back in just over an hour. He said the trail reminded him a lot of Pinhoti 3 in our back yard are Mulberry Gap. There’s about 3 miles of pretty intense climbing in the beginning, it levels out towards the top, and then you have a sick downhill with lots of switchbacks.
We drove back to Cogwild after to give back the map. Lev recommended an area for us to camp in the national forest and another trail to hit up close to where we were today. So we ended up keeping the map and staying for a bit to talk further. Once we were back in the car, we headed to Trader Joe’s to buy some grub and cheap beer for Andrew. We bought some garlic & herb goat cheese, cibatta bread, Simpler Times beer, crackers and coffee then set out to find our nomadic home for the night. We pulled down a dirt road and selected the perfect spot for us. Andrew worked on getting the fire started while I made an assortment of appetizers to munch on. We had our bread, cheese and crackers, and then moved onto a caesar salad. Andrew made potatoes and then cooked pork. We were stuffed, but happy!
Soon we were beginning to feel the effects and onset of food coma and the bed was calling our names. We both agreed it felt like a movie night, so we eenie-meenie-miney-moed until Hitch was all that was left. (Andrew and I are both very indecisive when it comes to food, movies, etc. so this is how we make up our minds). We watched the movie until his computer died and then crashed…hard.
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