Wagontire Population: 1

I stayed up late in Burns helping Marcus prepare his presentation about Wagontire, Oregon for the next morning route meeting. He performed in the auditorium a rendition of Guns 'n' Roses "Welcome to the Jungle." I helped him change the lyrics and worked the lighting and curtains. Josh and Brian performed on the air guitar. It was an epic performance.

The ride to Wagontire was extremely barren. Just arid wasteland and sagebrush for miles, with mountains in the far distance. The ride from Burns to Wagontire had just one gas station in between. Honestly, the southeastern part of Oregon, with all its desert, is a bit disappointing. I'll have to revisit Oregon's other regions because this was not the best first impression.

There were very few redeeming qualities about this bike ride. Every hill was followed by yet another hill, and the headwinds stopped us from really enjoying a descent. It was unrewarding and uninteresting. The coolest thing is that we turned from a westward highway onto a southbound highway.

The deserts of southeastern Oregon is where weird things happen. After the one gas station, I couldn't slow down, and eventually caught up to three riders with racing experience. I passed them while going 19 mph uphill, and did not give them a verbal "passing on your left" warning. What had gotten into me? The desert was finally wearing on me. I began drooling, unexpectedly yelling, and even saw a person but it was actually a mirage.

We camped in the booming metropolis of Wagontire, Oregon. One old man lives in this town and his name is Marty. The café, city hall, and motel that he runs are all closed down. I was reminded of the Solitude chapter of Thoreau’s Walden that I read the night before. Marty lives alone in the middle of the desert, and seems to rely on no one but himself. We camped on gravel. One rider was about to place their bike against a wall, when he saw a three foot long rattlesnake. Marty chopped the rattlesnake's head off, and collected the rattle. Our dangers in Wagontire were rattlesnakes, scorpions, and thorns.

We had a meeting about the grant applications we received from affordable housing organization and projects across the United States. We have a finite amount of fundraised funds to distribute, so this meeting was vital to our cause but also was time consuming. (It’s not like there was much to do in Wagontire anyway.) We narrowed down the candidate pool by a third, and decided to revisit the remaining applications the next day.

Christmas in July happened. I gave Brian his box of Trix cereal, and he actually drew my name too! Brian gave me a hot plate for candles to use in my dorm.