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* Day 14, Mitchell - Prineville (8/14/00)
Map: Day 14
Day 14
Day: 77.7 km | Trip: 1028 km

I left Mitchell at 8:15 AM after I had breakfast at a local restaurant. Great timing and great breakfast too. I had it in the same restaurant where I had dinner the night before. It is the last one on the right just before the city park. I also got a great night of sleep. The city park has nice soft grass and the public restrooms are very clean.

After Mitchell the road continues downhill, that was also the reason why I zoomed by Mitchell the day before and I had to come back a little and entered the town from the west.

The Ochoco Pass is a perfect pass. It starts out slow and then increases to a good grade, such that I did not have to get out of the seat if I did't want to. Towards the top it suddenly goes down and I already thought that this was the top, wrong. After the turn it goes uphill again, just a little steeper. The rest place just after the summit has no benches to sit down but it has vault toilets.

The downhill part had only very few steep parts. It spreads nicely till the Ochoco Reservoir. There was not much wind so with a little effort I could make great time and reached Prineville at 3 PM.

After the Ochoco Lake I met another bicyclist form the French part of Canada. He was going east from Astoria, Oregon all the way to Virginia. While we were talking a pickup truck stopped on the other side of the road. The driver came to us and offered us to camp in his yard for the night. We both thanked him and declined the offer, the Canadian guy wanted to go to Mitchell and I just wanted to be in a town again.

In Prineville I stayed in the Ochoco Inn Motel, nothing special but clean, cheap and very friendly service. Everything in Prineville is centered around the main street which is 3rd Street, the street I came in is US route 26. Thanks to TV I got to bed quite late.

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