Day 6: Umatilla, OR to Walla Walla, WA

Miles: 56.84
Total Elevation Gain (ft): 789
Weather: Sunny, Hot
Hillbilly Insults: 0
Roadkill: 8 (Deer, Owl, Mouse, 2 Snakes, 3 Unknown)
Bugs Swallowed: 0
Mean Dogs Chasing: 0

I couldn't distinguish SE Washington's wine country from the Flint Hills of Kansas. Take a look at the picture below. Hot, arid, inhospitable. Good when the grapes must suffer. Not so good when mine do.

Everyone tells me how much they love wine country after they take a holiday. I'm pretty sure it's the wine talking, because the mesas are interesting for a moment until they turn into broiling yellow fields of dry grass.

I had a painful ride into Walla Walla today. I think I might have to drop the mileage or take a rest day until my bottom becomes more human and fades from resembling a baboon in estrus.

Walla Walla: Charming downtown plopped in the middle of agricultural operations. I wish I has another day to explore it a bit.

I was reminded by my brother from another mother, Tom, that today is the 69th anniversary of D-Day. It's makes my whining so trivial!

So, I feel like a schmuck for complaining about my self-imposed mid-life crisis, dream vacation. It's all leisure for me and it was voluntary and conscripted sacrifice for the saviours of democracy.

While my brain was broiling under the skillet that Kali calls a "helmet" (More vents please!), I marveled that German engineering today provides me with impervious Schwalbe Marathon tires. That's a long way from the weapons of the Wermacht and the gas chambers. Thank you General Marshall for taming the Hun!

One final note: Go Bruins! Go Heat! I'm not on the LeBron hatin' bandwagon.