Day 7: Mitchell to Prineville If you've been paying attention you'll be able to guess where we had breakfast that morning. Yes, the Little Pine Cafe. Provider of all our meals in Mitchell.

It's about 50 miles from Mitchell to Prineville, west along Highway 26 and over 4,700 ft. Ochoco Pass, the highest point on our route. One of the local attractions near Mitchell are the "Painted Hills" where minerals in the soil create some pretty interesting color patterns. We'd seen a bit of that on our ride into Mitchell the previous day, but unfortunately, the "official" Painted Hills were a little too far off our route to warrant a detour. I'm sure they are beautiful...

It was a nice ride up Ochoco Pass, where snow undoubtedly covers the forested ground in late fall. But it was sunny and warm enough in September. At the top is a campground where the cyclists we'd met the prior day had spent the night. It probably wasn't too warm up at night at that elevation. We'd actually used lots of blankets and a heater the night before in Mitchell, which is down at about 1800 feet. A nice descent through the forest brought us to Ochoco Lake and finally into the town of Prineville. Prineville is only about 30 miles from Bend and Redmond and we immediately knew we were back in civilization. There weren't going to be any caged bears at the gas stations in Prineville. We checked into a Best Western, had a Mexican lunch, and dinner at a Pizza Hut. It was back to the reality of the modern world.