The Red Sauce Forest and nosebleeds

Thursday, June 6

We left Fort Rock without visiting its namesake geological feature. The day was expected to be over 90 degrees and we agreed to put on some miles early, break for the hot part of the day, then put in some additional miles in the evening. However, since the heat never really showed up we ended up riding more or less straight  through.

This is kind of random but Tanya asked me to include some photos of me, so here is my first, bad one: 

After leaving Fort Rock we climbed back into forest. Since Dante is going to miss his weekly indoor Rock climbing session this coming weekend he insisted on climbing the pile of rocks below.  Being 20 miles from the nearest town and who knows how far from the nearest hospital made me a bit nervous about it but I let him have at it.

About 20 miles of this red, sandy road followed. Among people who ride this route this is known as the "red sauce forest". When dry it is somewhat hard to ride due to the extra resistance when your tires sink into it. When wet it is pretty much unrideable. Thankfully it was dry for us.  

We took an about 45 minute break at Sand Spring (below). Since Kaden has started developing some saddle sores this was just one of many breaks during the second half of the day.

We ended the day at some sort of road maintenance site at the intersection of highways 20 and 27.  It was just a big, dirt lot with huge piles of gravel but it was the only land nearby that was not private.  Despite how sad it looks it ended up being a really good site for stargazing. Dante and I chose to just sleep outside and watch the stars. The milky way band was visible directly above us. It was also relatively quiet, with little noise from the highway.

Kaden was not as happy.  It was a very dry, deserty site and shortly after getting into his tent he had a huge nosebleed.  It was followed by another similarly large one about 15 minutes later. We went through almost every piece of gauze, wipe, etc. in our first aid kits. 

The repeated nature of it and the amount of blood had me thinking through options if they didn't stop. Luckily I had cell service at that point and was able to get some pointers on how to deal with it. Kaden ended up sleeping with rolls of gauze shoved up both nostrils to keep the dry air out and to absorb any additional blood. Surprisingly he actually managed to get a solid night of sleep that way.