Laughing all the way…

Kate Gray — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:14:00 +0000

My good friend, Linda, and I went for a bit of a ride on Sunday, the sunny day. We got to Mosier around 9am, parked near the totem pole, and then, started up. Linda didn’t know Mosier, and I didn’t know if I could make it up the hill that I’ve been climbing all these months to get to the land we’re going to build on. That hill just keeps going and going. The road is aptly named: 7 Mile Hill. It tours the cherry orchard and town cemetery, curving around knolls, curving past organic farms, up and up. Over our shoulders we could see Hood, like some snow cone, so white in the blue-blue. And then, the road tilted up. Like a machine, Linda pumped up the hill, and I zigzagged, watched my heartrate flash at me from my monitor: 178, 185, 193… I just didn’t want the pain when it exceeds 200. And just when I thought I might lose it, the crest came in view. There was Linda staring out at the Columbia, taking in the liminal place between Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. And we breathed.

Somehow I hadn’t thought there was a mile of uphill after the turn off to Dry Creek Rd, which leads to Osborn Cutoff, then to our road, Further Valley Rd. The sign says 6 miles to Mosier, and somehow the math had eluded me. We made it to the summit of 7 Mile Hill, 1780 feet up in 7 miles.

And oh, the downhill was worth it, 6 miles of screaming turns, basalt cliffs, no guardrails, 15-mile-an-hour turns, wild blue flowers showing off against the dark, dark rocks, The Dalles far below, and we clocked 38 miles an hour and couldn’t stop laughing at the bottom.

It was a short ride, and my ribs hurt from laughing.