We have just arrived in Brookings, Oregon, our last stop before entering California tomorrow. Its been a wild ride so far, and I apologize for not keeping the blog updated, but I am just beginning to recover from total body soreness. My attempts at even writing in my "journal" have been thwarted by exhaustion and drowsiness. I will do my best to sum up and give some direction to the future of this affair.
I arrived in Portland on Thursday, fully a week in the distant past at this point. After the airline threatened to lose my luggage in transit (an hour layover in Seattle was just not enough time for them to move my 2 boxes 3 gates over), I found Ross waiting for me in the airport and my boxes soon to follow. We built my bike in PDX's convenient bike assembly station (get with the picture EWR), we biked 3 "Guberman miles" to our hosts for the night. I would come to know intimately that 1 Guberman mile is equal to about 3 standard miles. We dropped our stuff off at the house and went into town for grog and gruel.
You may or may not have heard that Ross had a surprise coming to him. Our mutual friend Christine, who planned on coming out in December, bought a surprise ticket for the same day as me to Portland. We surprised him on a hip street in the north of town that night. After more grog, we were all tired and ready to call it a day.
The next day was spent exploring, provisioning, tuning up our bikes. We saw lots of cool stuff, all of which you will have to go to Portland yourself to see. We left for the coast Saturday, September 10. We took a train to escape the sprawl and stoplights out to Hillsboro and began our trip. A modest 55 miles and 1000 feet or so of climbing later put us in the Nestucca River Backcountry. A beer at the peak of the climb, offered by friendly automobile travelers, was icing on the cake and we freewheeled into the campground.
The next day was long, 80 miles to the next campground. We saw Pacific City, delicious wild blackberries and various water fowl. 90% of Oregon's population lives in Portland, and it shows. It is scenic and beautiful, lonely if not for the amazing sights, desolate in view of the clearcuts.
Our root took us through Florence Oregon yesterday, the rolling sand dunes of which were a prime influence on Frank Herbert's Dune, one of my favorite stories. The dunes themselves were incredible, a marvel of ecology. I eventuall overcame my fear of the native sandworms and ventured out onto the sea of sand. One place we stopped, it was more than 3 miles of fluid, constantly changing, sandscape to the Pacific. Thats a long way to walk with out rythem.
The Pacific itself was another impressive sight. Its cold and big. We first saw it in Pacific City, and that was my first experience with sea stacks, huge rocks that reach out of the ocean being slowly eroded by the crashing waves. The Pacific is so much bigger to the senses than the Atlantic is. Between the mountainous coastline, the enormous kelp or many sea stacks, it is almost unreal.
The southern coast of Oregon is too much to explain with words. I simply can't, so I won't try. What I can say: arch rocks, sea lions, sunsets, sheer cliffs, lighthouses, tears. Don't try to get much from the pictures either; they may show you what I saw, but they cannot and will not convey the feelings I felt. Using my own body to take me from city to city, using fully evey calorie of food and molecule of water I ingest to get me there, and seeing what I saw; again, no words can describe it. You really must experience it for yourself.
For all those wondering, my leg is fine. I got some blisters the very first day from wearibng a leg I don't usually wear, but some A&D took care of that (thanks George) and its been smooth sailing. My spare now sits happily atop my front rack, the coolest hood ornament I have ever seen.
My bike is taking it like a champ, hills and all. I won't say too much about this for karma's sake.
We will be riding a short day tomorrow to Crescent City, CA, and staying at a WormShower hosts house. I may or may not get a chance to upload some pictures there.
Until next time, much love to all back east and around the country/globe/universe. I will be in touch.
Sorely,
Me
