Note to followers, when I have sufficient bandwidth to upload pictures, I will upload to PHOTO tab, albums for Day 10 through Day 12, June 29, through June 30. Currently we are in Twin Falls Idaho and tomorrow head Declo ID. 

Thanks

Day 9 Arrive at Meridian and Tour VA hospital set up by Jeff Middlemas  Veteran Affairs Police. Pat met Jeff through warmshowers.com. Jeff, a avid cyclist, Air Force veteran, and works at the VA. The Boise VA is an historical site built in 1862, with many of the original buildings remaining. Jeff arranged the tour, arranged for a fishing trip for Dave, On our day off met us at our site with 6+ friends and brought food, barb-b-qed for us, entertained us.  For today, he arranged for us to participate in Boise annual All Veteran Welcome Home event. Finally he rode with us and led us out of town. We owe a lot to Jeff. A lot more to follow about our stay in Boise.

From left, Jeff Middlemas and co worker Scott

Mark Davidson, of Operation HomeFront, 3rd from left. Operation Homefront is in association with wounded warrior project, and helps veterans with financial needs.

Monty, volunteer at Boise VA, gave us a tour.  Monty (navigator submarine service) is a wealth of knowledge on the history of Boise VA, which dated back to 1862 and is an historical site.

 Jeff (standing in the foreground) brings his friends to our site and  feeds us and entertains us.

Thanks to all of Jeff's friends that showed up to visit with us.

Leaving the KOA at Meridian ID on our way to Boise VA All Veterans Home Coming Annual event, and then on to Mountain View ID.

Day 9 Fruitland ID to Meridian ID (near Boise) 60 miles 2000' climbing

Even though this was the easiest route so far, we were all very tired when we arrived at the Meridian KOA RV Park. Temperature hit 100+ today.  Meridian KAO generously provided us a great spot for 2 nights free of charge.   Tom, Pat, Ed, Dave set up tents on the lawn at the site. Not having learned our lesson at a previous RV park, we forgot to ask manager to shut off sprinkler system. 11 PM sprinklers go off and it is a mad dash to drag tents etc out into street!

Leaving Fruitland we got lost for 7 miles before we met Darby, out for a ride while on summer break (  she is assistant principal at Ontario OR HS) who road with us and got us back on track.

We cycled through Idaho farmland, one farm had a herd of buffalo as an added attraction

Jeff Middlemas, who works at the VA hospital in Boise, visited us. He is a cyclist and works par time at Ken's Bicycle Warehouse arranged for the store to check over all our bicycles.

Jeff is also going to have a van pick us up at 12:30, take us to the VA hospital where we will visit with vets.  He has also arranged with some vet friends to take Dave fishing.  

When we leave on Saturday, we are going to participate in a Boise Veterans appreciation event.

Pictures will follow. Also, remember to view our photo albums on the photo tab.

Day 8 Baker OR to Fruitland ID 83 miles 2100 ' climbing

Went from cold and wet to hot with temps near 80

The Ride.....

Day 8 Baker OR to Fruitland ID 83 miles 2100 ' climbing

ONE STATE DOWN! To date 535 total miles, 25,488 total feet of climbing 

From left to right Pat, Jim, Tom, Dale. We crossed the Snake River crossing into Payette Idaho

To ALL, please give us some feedback and your comments. At the bottom of each post you can click on "no comments" and a pop up will appear which will allow to add your comments to post, similar to facebook

Pat gets two  flats today, ed had slit tire yesterday

Cornfields  to Fruitland. As we approached Idaho, we passed fields of corn, onion, radishes, alfalfa, oats. 

Once at Neat Retreat RV Park, Derrick and Christy Vandeberg, owners of Neat Retreat, Hosted us with Barb - b- q hambergers, potato salad, salad, fruit. Ellen, Derrick's mother, made the potato salad, cookies and German chocolate cake for desert.

Tomorrow is 84 Miles to our first stop in Idaho!

Today I uploaded to new albums, which can be accessed from Photo Tab. Also, when time allows, I will go back and add to existing posts with more information.

Also anyone can leave us comments on any of our posts by clicking "no comments" at bottom of the post. This brings up a window for you to enter your comments, also enter your name in your comments.

Thanks,

The 6 over 60 team.

Day 7 Prairie City Oregon to Baker Oregon 66 miles 6000 feet of climbing beautiful national forests pictures to follow

Day 7 66 miles 5300 ' climbing Prairie City to Baker Or through two National Forests

Beautiful scenery Strawberry mt, Malhuer national park. Another wet cold day but majestic view made up for weather.

Tom and Ed, with Strawberry Mt hidden by clouds.

Ed and Jim heading for Baker OR

Huckle Berry Cafe break at top of climb .  Was closed but owner saw us out front and opened it for us

Owner's Grand children having breakfast in the bar, watching TV. Jim made quick friends with them

Huckleberry Cafe with owner in center of pic, will get her name and update this post

Dave met larry at local store, he helped Dave get to RV park, then came by later to sing and play guitar for us. Formerly homeless for 4 years, found the Lord and is now got his life together.

DAY 6 Wendy and Clark Reames who we met that day opened up there home to us in Prairie City OR

Wendy Reames cooking Spaghetti with Elk meat sauce

Day 5 Dayville Or, 84 miles 5000 ' of climbing

We stayed at Fish House RV Park, since tents are not allowed we stayed in this house, built in 

1916. Dave cooked us the trout he caught yesterday, great dinner.

Check uploaded albums for more pictures of the house

Day 4 Prineville 39 miles 1600 ' of climbing

We have visitors!  Ron Tyree, and motorcycle buddies Ralph and Rex, visit us again in Prineville.

Kathy Hurley (Ed's sister in law from Seattle WA) and her friend Jackie from Portland pay a visit bringing home made cookies.

Martha Sargent (friend of Ed and college friend to Ed's wife) visits from Bend OR, and joins us for dinner at Toni's Bar-b-Q. Toni learned of our project and in appreciation provided us all dinner for free! Best ribs any of us ever had! 

Tom Vawters, long time friend of Tom and his wife, pastor who married them, also and author, living in Scottsdale AZ, and Bend OR. He arranged dinner at Toni's.

I will post more on this day later.

Toni's Bar-b-Q

 Dinner at Toni's

group picture with Toni front center

Day 4 and day 5 postings to follow when we hit another location with internet access. It is hard to find time to blog, on our 80 mile days !

Meantime check out our uploaded photos on our photo tab. Today we are leaving Dayville at 11, instead of the usual 7:30, giving us time to blog.

Day 3 Welches to Lake Simtustus near Madras 79 miles 5084 ft climbing

Left Mt Hood RV and immediately  begin 15 mile climb up to Mt Hood Summit. Again we hit moderate amount of rain. The summit is wet and cold, and glad to get on the down hill. Soon rain stops and temperatures warm up. It isn't long before the landscape changes from dense mount pine forest to much drier scenery. The RV park at the lake is 5 miles off Hwy 26,  with steep  climbs of up to 15%.

Simtustus RV park provides us a separate RV trailer for our use, with full amenities and sleeping for 4.

The owner and staff as well as many of the guests took good care of us. One of the guests (a veteran) took Dave out in his boat fishing. Dave caught 8 fish, which we had for dinner when we arrived in Dayville day 5.

 Near Simtustus Lake

Dave ready to go fishing

Pat and Tom on the road

Near the summit of Mt hood

Lake Simtustus

Jim's friend Ron Tyree (sponsor of ours) and his friends Ralph and Rex  on their Harleys and Victory

visit us.

Since our RV was at the entrance, several vets staying at the park came over to visit.

See many more pictures under our PHOTO tab, album 20130624 Uploads

To our followers, click on our Photo tab, to see many more pictures as I create albums. Click on an individual picture in an album to see detail including captions.

Day 2 From St Helens to Welches, at the base of Mt Hood

77 Miles and 1667 feet of climbing.

Our second day was very busy starting with a ride to Vancouver WA VA hospital. After spending 2:30 min at the VA hospital (for me this visit makes the whole adventure worthwhile) we head toward Portland, passing East of Portland, where we met Pat's son and two friends Emily and Liza who road with us for a good portion of our ride taking us on some great bike paths.

On our way to Vancouver WA we crossed several bridges, this one was St John Bridge over the Willamette River.

We were not allowed to take pictures at the VA, but our host took pictures and will send them to me. I will post them when I receive them. At the VA, we were introduced to a group of live-in vets. Tom presented to the group a talk about what we are doing. Jim also discussed his experience in Vietnam. Then we each individually personally introduced our selves to each vet who would related fascinating stories to us. There were also two vets (Hoppi and Ratman dressed in leathers) from Combat Veterans International, a motor cycle group who support the VA and wounded worriors. As we reached out to each vet, they would break out into a big smile, tell us how they appreciated what we were doing, then would related their own stories.

There we vets from WWII, through some of the latest conflicts. I met Ozzie, who is a Tuskege Airman. Some of you may be familiar with the all black fighter squadron, in WWII from the movie.

More stories and pictures to come about this visit.

Dale with grant, who recently had a stroke. He just turned 60 and is planning to run a marathon this year.

Group picture outside VA Hospital

After leaving VA, we met with Pat's son who lives in the Portland area. Liza brought some home made cookies, and we took a little break along the trail.

From left to right front, Liza, Emily, Paul. From left to right back Tom, Ed, Dale, Pat, Jim

Once we reached St Helens, friends of Dale,  Bob, Chief of Police in Battleground WA,  and his wife took us to dinner. Bob and his wife recently moved to this area from the Southern CA.

Day 1 Astoria to St Helens

Thanks to the Astoria Police Dept, who met us in Astoria and assisted us in getting started. We finally started to roll out of Astoria around 10:30 on our way to st Helens, 69 miles, 3100 feet of climbing. It took us awhile to get organized and ready. Being anxious about starting, it was a bit comical to watch us futzing around trying to get dressed and bikes set up.

June 18th Portland Night Before Departure from Astoria

June 18th, Dale's Niece Gayle and her husband Steve Meyers hosted us with a great barb-b-q  of pulled pork

Gayle and Steve with their new 6 over 60 T shirts

To All those following us on this blog, thank you for your patience, as we have not had internet access for several days, as well as no phone service.  We are also working out the logistics of our daily routine, getting up  at 5AM, breaking down our camp sites, leaving on the bikes at 7 or 8, and arriving at our next destination between 4 and 6 PM, setting, getting dinner etc. Please be patient, we will catch you up. Also, I am uploading pictures to new albums under our Photo tab by upload date. Pictures are uploaded then later I will add them to posts.

Astoria to St Helens - 65 miles, 3000 ' of climbing

Weather started out 61 degrees, partly cloudy. 1:30 in to the ride we hit rain. Ride went well, just cold and wet.

Bob and Lynn, friends of Dale who retired from Irvine to this area took us out to dinner.

Astoria looking out toward the ocean

Donation Challenge

I received a phone call from Bonnie Campbell, who read our article in the Orange County Register Irvine World News, and wishes to donate $1000.

She offers to donate $1000 if others will match her. So we will be looking for $1000 donations!

Anyone up for the challenge?

Also consider the Helmet Man for all motor sports, biking, snowboarding etc. helmet needs!

The Helmet Man  (see our sponsor tab) will donate $5.00 for EVERY bicycle helmet sold during the ride.

We are anxiously awaiting our start on June 19th!

Below is picture of the team in our new jerseys, taken by Dave Verdecia after our Thursday training ride.
Left to right Pat, Tom, Jim, Dale, Ed

Tuesday Night meeting 6/4/2013 wrapping our plans up.

Left to right Tom, Darryl, Ed, Dale, Pat, Jim