My day consisted of activities that were consistent with its name, rest. I layed in bed, watched tv, dipped in the pool, finally checked emails (thank you everyone who has sent me well wishes) and generally just enjoyed the air conditioning. I did walk around town and went to the Pioneer Museum. It was a great little history lesson. They had covered wagons, carriages and other items from the pioneers that came on the Oregon Trail. They also had several pieces of mining equipment and all kinds of antiques from the early days of Baker City and the surrounding towns. On the way back from the museum, I stopped inside of the US Bank. The bank has a display of several gold nuggets and flakes from the surrounding mines. Back in the day, when panners would find gold, they would bring it to town to sell to the bank for $.16 an ounce. The largest nugget the bank had on display was 6.4 pounds and worth about $32,000 today.

Walking back to the motel, I decided I was just too hot, so I walked into the corner barber shop. Wes Gunnison, the barber, sat me right down and asked how I wanted it. I told him I'm biking across the country and it's too hot to have all of this hair, so I wanted it shaved.

"You bet, I'll give you a butch." I have not heard one native Baker Citite either begin or end a phrase without the words "you bet."

"Nope, I want it shaved, no attachments."

"That's short."

"Yup, I'm hot."

So Wes began shaving my head and telling me the story of his life. He was a military kid born in Monterey, CA. He grew up on military bases up and down the California coast, spending 5 years in San Francisco back when it was a beatnik town. He loved the Bay Area, but that was back before "the hippies and the homosexuals." He went to the University of Oregon in the early 70s where he ran track. "I ran a 9.7 hundred and was .10 seconds from making the Olympic trials. Don't run anymore though, my achilles gives me problems. Back then we didn't know such things as stretching. I work out at home now, I have a BowFlex. Best machine in the world, and I've tried them all. Only thing better is going to the gym."

"Yeah, Eugene was a fun place back in the 70s. Lots of hippies. I suppose now you could have probably called me one, but I was more of an environmentalist. Of course that was when I didn't know how much they were lying to me. I used to cut this one guy's hair, he was an engineer for the government. He said the regulations are such now that even if they found gold, they couldn't mine it. Did you know that once we run out of all the ammunition in our arsenal now, the United States doesn't have enough resources to build more? We're going to have to buy it from the Russians. I don't understand it, all them trees is a renewable resource and the goverment is telling us we can't cut 'em down. Things sure have changed."