This was an awesome day of riding! We woke at midnight, slammed some awful motel coffee, and ate some weird breakfast (V microwaved frozen macaroni and cheese with Indian “meatballs”, and me the last 1/4 of yesterday’s burrito). We left at 1:30 AM from Baker City and arrived 80 miles later at 10:00 AM in John Day. It started with one long, gradual climb of 1000’ over 35 miles, followed by three more 1000’ climbs that lasted between 3-6 miles each, followed by a screaming descent into Prairie City at the 67-mile mark. It was SOOOOOO cold in the dark and past dawn as we got to 5,000+ foot elevation, yet I was too lazy and stubborn to get out my gloves even though it was cold enough to see my breath. After the the first short, steep, 1000’ climb, we stopped at the peak for sunrise and a meal….tortilla roll ups with peanut butter, Nutella, and PEPPER JACK cheese. Ok, V left out the cheese and ate it separately, but she totally missed out on that full amazingness! Anyway, I’m so proud of how well we rode today!! We were strong and consistent, we didn’t dawdle, and we got all the hills done before it got hot. Prairie City was a cute, Western town and we got an iced espresso and a brownie to quickly share before we headed further downhill 13 more miles to John Day before it got hot. In John Day we ran into difficulty as the first two motels we stopped at hassled us with accepting service dogs but we got into the third one we tried. I called and ordered a veggie pizza from a place 0.25 miles away from the motel and walked down to get it; 20 mins they told me on the phone, so I went there 25 minutes later but it turned into 60 minutes because they’d lost my order and when I walked to get it I had to order all over again and wait while it cooked. Then I came back and I picked a daisy for Vanesa on the way. The pizza was super yummy…I’ve never been so excited to eat broccoli!!!…and we saved some for breakfast later to fuel tomorrow’s ride. I then called to the Spoke n’ Hostel to alert them that we’ll be there tomorrow morning (this place is said to be such a fantastic Trans Am cyclist hostel that we planned to take a rest day there and stay 2 nights)…and they said they are booked solid so can only offer tent camping space (with full access to the inside of the hostel)…but they now also no longer accept service dogs inside the building because they’ve had three “terrifying incidents” in the past two years with dogs, so that rules out us staying there even if were willing to camp because we’d surely want to go inside the hostel to relax and cool down. Oh well. Whatever. We called another place in Mitchell, The Oregon Hotel, and reserved a room with 2 beds, a sink, shared bath, fan but no AC for tomorrow instead. It’s supposed to get to only 91 degrees Fahrenheit in Mitchell tomorrow so hopefully we’ll be cool enough. As for today, Vanesa just spent an hour cutting Maui’s hair and is now bathing her…gotta keep your service dog well-groomed, after all, and V is the BEST service dog owner. Not much else to say. John Day is kind of a crappy town, and we can’t wait to move on down the road. We’re sad to not be able to stay at the hostel in Mitchell but we don’t want to take a rest day in the hotel in Mitchell so it’ll just be another hotel stop in another town. We’re both excited to be getting closer to home…