That's a wrap!

the score

Sept. 27, 2009

One month, three weeks and five days on the road. Seven states. Seventeen flats. Nineteen couchsurfs. Six State Parks. One West Texas bus ride. Five crucial hitchhikes. Two thousand two hundred and forty-nine point two pedaled miles.

Our metallic silver dresses whipped and flitted in the intense Columbia Gorge wind. We wound up to a lookout point on Old Hwy 30. Turning up the final hill, we stopped pedaling; the wind at our backs, stronger than gravity, pushed us uphill. The Columbia River spanned in both directions, Washington State sitting across its bank. Back on I-84, we made a final pit-stop at Multnomah Falls, before the last push to Portland and steaming Mexican lasagna at Dana’s apartment. During those final seventy miles of the last day of the most incredible adventure of my life, I compiled the following list:

Ten lessons learned--
1. Most dogs are more bark than bite.
2. “America is alive and well if you approach it on foot.”
3. If your bungies seem to loose, they are.
4. Strangers should usually be trusted.
5. Texas has hills.
6. When traveling with one person for two months, love is pretty much the right answer.
7. Butt chafe is unavoidable.
8. If it’s 3-o’clock and Bree is checking her bike for “the resistance,” it just means she’s tired.
9. Family isn’t just those who share DNA.
10. Even the greatest adventures of your life come to an end. And that’s okay.

We pulled up to the brick apartment building in SE Portland. Dana greeted us on the sidewalk with fat hugs. We put the bikes on the elevator, then Bree and I passed out on her fluffy bed, wondering how you follow up an experience such as this.


Thank you for reading!

sturgeon

Sept. 25, 2009

An RV pulled over on the side of the interstate. Someone burst through the door and sprinted towards me. My jaw dropped. It was Stefanie: the fiddler from Baker City. Some friends were taking her and her husband to play at a Blue Grass music festival in Central Oregon. We had a hug-filled reunion with snapping cameras and semis rumbling by.

Moments after they pulled off, I felt my bike slow as my back tire lost all its air. I figured the funky patch I’d gotten from the hardware stove the night before had given out. All we had left were funky patches. (It turns out, it was just another hole. I could have patched it; but fate was taking us fishing). We stuck out our thumb to get to the next bike shop.

Another RV pulled over; this one toting a boat. The fisherman, Steve, helped us load our bikes. “I have room in the boat if you want to join me sturgeon fishing today,” he invited. It took an iota of thought. Steve bought us day licenses and we headed to the Columbia. Minutes after casting out, we got a bite. Twenty minutes later, with sweat dripping and a fresh blister on my thumb, I pulled an 8-foot prehistoric sturgeon to the stern. Unreal.

We made turkey sandwiches, drank beer and Gatorade, and relaxed in the sunshine between battles with monster fish that we wide-eyed stared at before releasing back into the river.

At the end of the day, we all decided that was the best flat we had ever had.

my trail

Sept. 25, 2009

I left behind an obese book about the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge with my Cajun third cousin-in-law. After deciding my Chaco sandals could do it all, I gave my New Balance tennies to Pam in St. Francisville, LA. My extra water bottle, with the WWOZ sticker, found a new home in Marksville, LA with the "coonasses," Penny and O'Neil. My red and maroon biking shirts--both uncomfortably short--I gifted to Grace in Giddings, TX, along with my mustard yellow knitting yarn. At the Ashram in Taos, NM, I donated 18 neon combs, since the dollar store only sold 20-packs. In Albuquerque, after buying and reading "Semi-Native"--a book about New Mexicanisms--I placed it on a shelf in the Beekeepers' library. I accidentally passed on my razor to the Couchsurfers in Flagstaff, AZ. I placed an extra pair of sunglasses on a park bench in Boise and another on a tree branch in Arlingson, OR because Bree keeps finding me cooler pairs along the road. Yesterday, we left our mixed "NOLA Jams" CD with Katherine in Pendleton, OR--a woman we met at a coffeeshop who invited us to crash in her beautiful Harley-themed home. Twenty-seven other people along the route might be listening to that CD, too. Our gift of gratitude.

yankee doodle

Sept. 23, 2009

I shivered through four layers, yet somehow her bare fingers moved. Up and down the neck of the fiddle. “Amazing grace…” We already ate pizza, drank tea, and were on to Peanut Butter Cups…under the stars in the bitter Eastern Oregon air, while Stefanie took us back 100 years.

We met Michael and Stefanie in Baker City, OR’s bookstore. Bree asked if we could pitch a tent in their yard. We followed them, each of us on a bike, to their single-story house with a flock of quail in the front. The grass was cut short. We set up in the corner. They left and returned with pizza. Extra cheese. We made chamomile tea on our stove. Stefanie tapped her toe to her melody and beamed a genuine “cowgirl” smile.

In the morning they had doughnuts for us and tips for scenic rides. Generosity despite being unemployed…

A couple miles outside of La Grande a man was standing next to his parked truck. “I’m Jack Boyd,” he said as I approached. “Just wanted to make sure you girls didn’t eat in town. We got spaghetti simmering at the house.” He is the father of one of my Seaside High School teachers. His wife, Jennifer, had prepared a feast, complete with raspberry-topped vanilla ice-cream. In the evening we each found a cushion and a lamp in the living room to read.

Waking up early to brewed coffee, we ate together then took a sack into the backyard and loaded it with purple grapes, apples and plums straight from the tree.

Our bicycles--packed a little bit heavier--we maneuvered down the hill and towards the Blue Mountains, Pendleton, Portland and beyond.