We hammered a few easy, flat (but surprisingly cold) miles out of Redmond but then the road started getting a little hillier, and hillier, and then hillier, and we were wondering “WTF, Google!? Mostly flat!?!?” Nothing was hard hill-wise, but when you expect “mostly flat”, smaller hills become more annoying and feel bigger. It’s a good reminder of the emotional component of challenging activity and to keep your expectations in check! It finally leveled out a few miles before Sisters as the sun was rising on the MAGNIFICENT central Cascades mountains, and the light shining from behind us onto the big, snowy peaks was simply stunning. It was the optimal hour to ride this road, if you’re dressed for the cold, which we basically were. That said, we were really excited to get to Sisters Coffee Company and we arrived at 6:20 - 2 hours and 20 minutes after we’d left Redmond, and 36 minutes AFTER Google had suggested we’d arrive. Again….you're lame and untrustworthy for a bicyclist, Google…we are in great shape after 4000 miles of riding, we rode hard and hardly stopped for the 21 “mostly flat” miles, and we were SLOWER than you think we ought to be?? Hmph. (Though their car directions are usually pretty spot-on, I’ve learned to not trust Google bike directions in the past, so I don’t know why I suddenly felt they were to be believed THIS time.) Sisters, Oregon is an awesome town - super nice buildings, very clean with a lot of beautiful flowers everywhere, and the whole town has a rustic, Western theme. It’s actually pretty upscale (read: EXPENSIVE) though and is, to me, kind of reminiscent of a Colorado ski town. But it is a town we always say “we really like it here” when we visit. We headed straight for the Sisters Coffee Shop and got two Americanos, a breakfast burrito, and a vegetarian breakfast sandwich. The coffee was so tasty I wanted to take a warm bath in it! I have had more shitty motel and gas station coffee with powdered chemical "creamer" on this this trip than I ever wanted, and I’m so happy to be back in the land of good coffee!! The food was awesome too, and the wood and rock rustic (but clearly new and polished) decor was cool too. We had a nice conversation outside when we left with a couple traveling in their Sprinter van and we talked all about how to find good, free, safe, legal van campsites so you don’t have to pay for an RV spot and you can be out in super beautiful nature locations. (We don’t want to ALWAYS be bicycle tourists!) And then we headed west out of Sisters, eagerly anticipating the 15-mile climb up to the summit of McKenzie Pass, which trudges right through the middle of a massive lava field with spectacular 360-degree views at the Dee Wright Observatory from which you can see multiple Cascades mountain peaks. It's a spectacular location to visit, whether by car or bike, as it's otherworldly. It's black, rocky, harsh, and gorgeous. It’s something in the vicinity of a 2500-foot climb from the town of Sisters and it’s just eye-poppingly pretty all the way up as you transition through several microclimates, from dense forest to barren lava field. And given that this is the last big peak we’ll climb, and that we NOW feel like we are home again, we wanted to go for it. You should’ve seen Vanesa, legs churning like little pistons, muscles flexing and relaxing rhythmically to propel her up that mountain; she won’t call herself a cyclist, but I can. That girl can ride a bike, people; she's a champion! We alternately pushed it and stopped for beautiful photos, and we reached the summit together in what felt like a very special and triumphant moment. We ate a snack, walked up the steps to the observatory, took a few pics, and came back down to descend down the other side of the mountain. You know your legs are in good shape when you ride for a couple of hours of a mountain and then you, without giving it a second though, get off the bike and walk up 100 steps to the top of an observatory for great photos. We celebrated here for a couple minutes, reminisced about all we'd ridden through and how happy we were to be back where we feel at home, and then headed downhill. It’s a much longer descent than ascent when you do McKenzie Pass from east to west, and we dropped from an elevation of about 5300 ft at the summit to about 1300 ft at the end of the McKenzie Pass Highway 242 where it meets up with the larger Highway 126. We dropped and dropped, though in the first couple of miles of the descent there are actually a few small UPHILLS that make you wonder if you’re really descending, and the road dives down pretty rapidly as it snakes down from the lava, into the sparse treeline, and finally into a dense and luscious forest. It’s about 16 miles descending, with switchback after switchback and very few vehicles, and it’s FUN on a bike!!! I had an annoying brake squeal on the way down, but otherwise it’s just a fun, fast, technical, and minimally-trafficked ride down a big, gorgeous mountain for miles and miles. At the Highway 242/126 intersection, we turned left toward Eugene but only rode about 1/2 mile to the Paradise Campground, where our amazing friend Orlando (yes, the same Orlando that we met up with in Grand Teton National Park) and his son Jett had driven to from Portland to come camp with us!!!!! So generously, Orlando had reached out and asked if he could meet us somewhere to camp for a night along our route and he offered to bring food and cook for us too! He wanted to go fishing and camping with his son for a day, but he reached out to us and tried to coordinate his trip with where we were so he could spend more time with us and take care of us on the road. What a dude. Not only did he make pasta for us, his wife Gayla and Jett had teamed up the night before we arrived to make Vanesa’s FAVORITE dessert….vegan sweet potato chocolate cake. Don’t judge it until you’ve tried it, non-vegan folks. I'm not vegan, and this cake is is is is is just AMAZING. Orlando set up his 8-person tent and had 3 cots inside for us to sleep on (Jett chose to sleep in a hammock) so we all had plenty of room, and we didn't have to set up our own tent and pack it away the next morning wet and in the dark. He also has a truck-top camp shower on his Toyota 4-Runner so we were able to clean up properly; though our site was right next to the gorgeous McKenzie River, there would have been no river bathing here as the current was treacherous. He had beer. He had chocolate. He had Kettle sea salt and truffle oil potato chips. He had bagels. He had pasta. He offered to make us pancakes (we fell asleep first, haha). And then, when we carefully awakened and were trying to really quietly pack up and sneak out of camp at 230 AM, he got up and made hot coffee for us in the dark before we left!! Talk about above and beyond; this is one amazing guy we are lucky to call a friend. We loved that he brought Jett to hang out with us too, but we were bummed that he didn’t make Gayla blow off work and come too! We missed her!!! (Gayla, do you love work more than you love us? HAHAHAHA just kidding!) It has been so special seeing these guys TWICE on our Trans Am and we’ll forever remember that they were such a great part of our wonderful journey this summer. And with that, we were off, tailight-blinking our way down the dark Highway 126 with the log trucks passing us completely in the other lane, off toward a sleep destination as yet unknown (Springfield, Coburg, Harrisburg, or maybe 5 miles off-route to Eugene). It'd need to be another hotel night because of yet more high 90's heat expected that day and the next.