Oh, my quad(s), an epic day

Yesterday was just one of those epic days that you'll remember for a long time. The course was to climb the old grade of Cabbage Hill up to Deadman's Pass, Meacham and the Oregon Trail interpretive center. Basically, straight up to Deadman's pass for 15 miles was the heart of it. Only, it was raining...
As we began at 54 degrees at Tamasklit, with a sprinkle of rain, things were ominous as you looked up towards the mountains. Ominous as in black, with the top totally obscured. I sat there in car after I parked and thought, "you know, I should just go home. This is a bad idea." But, my cyclist self scolded my reasonable, lawyerly self into getting out of the car. In the parking lot, I ran into my friends Phil and Dale Hoffman, arguing about whether they should ride now or wait until later. Phil was sure that the weather would improve by noon or so. Dale wanted to go now. I left them disagreeing.
As we climbed, fortunately the road was traffic free except for the support vehicles, because the visibility became less and less as we rode upwards. I began to peek over the top of my glasses, and finally just took them off and put them up on my helmet. Nearsighted as I am, at 8 miles per hour, I could actually see better. Even so, visibility was less than 30 feet.
Then there were the 4 metal cattle guards. In the rain. I decided to walk across the first ones, but that proved to be more difficult in bike shoes with my small size 6 feet than riding. As I walked the first cattle guard, I saw a man pulling a Burley trailer with his 9 month old daughter in it ride on by. Astounding.
It was so steep that I had to go across the road to be able to remount and get going.
The hairpin turns weren't so bad if you rode in the middle of the road, which was only possible with the dearth of traffic.
Deadman's Pass was the food stop. I started to walk over to the food, and out of the mist appeared Phil Hoffman, like an apparition, only in his street shoes. "Hey, do you want a ride down? Dale decided to ride up but didn't want to go down in the rain and fog." Why yes, that sounded lovely.
They had hot baked potatoes wrapped in foil. It felt so good on my frigid hands that I almost asked for another one so that each hand would be warm. Others were making the same decision. In the ladies room (it is a rest stop on the I84) the hot air hand dryers were being utilized to dry out soaked pieces of clothing after they were first wrung out. One thing about cyclists in tough conditions: by and large they are pretty good humored and ingenious.
Pretty soon, the fellow with his 9 month old daughter arrived (I really don't remember passing him), followed a short while later by his wife (who then nursed their baby) and his mother in law. His wife complained about how out of shape she was. I said I was just in awe of her. I think that child has some great genes and parents with great values. Her name is Hazel. Watch out for her racing in about 18 years.
Going down the freeway side of Cabbage Hill in Phil's rig with some other refugees was slow and foggy. The big rigs had their flashers on and were going even slower than we were.
The shower at the bottom of the hill was thankfully very, very warm. My quads by then had stiffened up and were grouching at me. What a ride. As I drove home I was already making plans to go up (& down) this climb later in the summer...