Live Simply, Bike Often: The End

We made it! We rolled in to Portland late on Tuesday August 14th, finishing our ride on a bike path at dusk. Looking across the Willamette River towards downtown, we were awed by the sparkling skyline of the city.... a city! Portland! We were euphoric, exhausted, and excited.

Rewinding a few weeks, we spent a second rest day in Missoula writing the last blog post, painting and writing postcards to friends and family, and watching the Olympics on my friend Sarah's computer. It was a much needed day- we just vegged out in our pajamas and cooked and ate.

The next morning we set off early to take on our last pass through the Rockies, Lolo Pass. Lolo pass is famous for being the path Louis and Clark took to cross the Rockies. It was a steady, gradual uphill until the last 4 miles, which were a steep climb.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Zoey's rear tire has been slowly deteriorating since Rapid City, and 13 miles from lolo pass, it finally popped. We had been talking about switching the front and the rear tire so the battered tire wouldn't wear out as quickly on the front wheel. But we never prioritized it or got around to it. So there we were, on the side of the road, 35 miles from Missoula (with a plethora of bike shops) with a popped tire and no spares. With a few ideas buzzing around in my mind, we proceeded to first swap the tires and try to patch the broken tire in some way. Just then, a biker rode by, a Japanese man who spoke no English who was riding the TransAmerica route. He saw what we were trying to do and stopped, took out his wallet. He held a dollar bill in his hand and said: "good"- and proceeded to point to inside the tire. We thanked him and said we'd try it. A few minutes later another couple of bikers rode by, these two from Missoula just doing a day ride. One of them had a spare tire, so even though it was the wrong size tire (Zoey's rims are ancient 27" and his spare tire was a 700c) we tried in vain to stretch it onto the rim. No luck, so we went back to the dollar bills. One of the guys had an idea to wrap medical tape around the inside of the rim, so we did that too. Dollar bills and medical tape lasted us another 200 or so miles to Lewiston, ID.

US Highway 12 through the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho was one of my favorite rides of the trip. After going over the pass we literally had 174 miles of downhill through pristine forest following the Lochsa and Clearwater Rivers. It was so beautiful- around every curve was another vista with amazing foreground and background sights. The west is amazing like that- it has both foreground and background in its scenery, and the east really only has foreground. I loved biking in the forest, it was wonderfully familiar and comforting to be surrounded by trees and rivers and mountain peaks. There were places to seek shelter, to be alone, to find water to drink. This was a place that could sustain life, and I could feel the commotion all around me.

The night after Missoula we stayed at a campground over the pass and met Hugh, a 19 year old cyclist from Oregon. He started in Portland and was riding a pretty sweet recumbent bike. He was headed towards Yellowstone, but didn't really intend to stop there. He had just finished his first year of college and wasn't sure it was for him, so did not register for this coming year and hopped on his bike instead. I know the feeling of college not fitting like you wanted it too, and I have had a few second thoughts about it as well, both last year and on this trip. Anyway, we had a really fun time hanging out with him and in the morning before we rode off in separate directions he let me try his recumbent. It was really similar, except one key difference that he noted. Your field of vision in a recumbent is much nicer- you get to look up at the sky instead of down at the ground. I had never thought about that before.

One day we stopped and swam in the Lochsa River, and found the current to be really strong and the water to be really deep. So instead of swimming we sat on a rock, immersing ourselves and trying not to be pulled downstream. It was still a refreshing bathe, and the water was so clean! We also ate lots of blackberries on the side of the rode, and even found a delicious plum tree that Hugh had mentioned. [Free] fresh fruit is pretty great.

Our last night in the forest before reaching Lewiston we had no "dinner" food to eat, only snack stuff. We came to the small town with a gas station store and scrounged what little vegetarian food we could find and managed to eat the most disgusting meal I can recall from the trip. We had white flour tortillas with rubbery cheddar cheese, canned potatoes, baked beans (so sugary) and canned corn. We were terribly hungry so we ate it all, but even during it we were acknowledging how gross of a meal it was. Ugh.

In hindsight we should have taken more days to ride from Missoula to Lewiston because we rode through such beautiful country, but we did it in 3 days. 3 days, 216 miles over a mountain pass. The final day we rode into Lewiston, completing a century ride on Highway 12 through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. In Kamiah, The Adventure Cycling maps had us leave highway 12 and go up a huge hill to go on backroads into Lewiston. After much discussion, we decided to take the "dangerous" River Option that ACA warns against and stay on Highway 12 the whole way. We were tempted by the continuing downhill ride and cool river breeze on a 95 degree day, and the ability to make it to Lewiston in one day instead of two. So we pushed ourselves, and were across the bridge from Lewiston when I got a flat. My first flat of the trip, and our second that day (Zo had gotten one earlier, surprisingly not on her dollar bill patched tire). It was dark at that point, so we decided to call Holly L., whose house we were staying at in Lewiston. She came and picked us up in her van and drove us the 3 miles to her house. It was such a relief to take a shower and sleep in a bed after 3 nights in the woods.

Exhausted after the 100 miles the previous day and one day ahead of schedule we decided to take a rest day in Lewiston. We also needed to replace Zoey's tire, which we did. We put on an armadillo, a slick kevlar-lined tire. That day we also really wanted pie, so we rode up a hill to a restaurant which was known to make really good pie. We both wanted marionberry pie, a local favorite (marionberries are a type of blackberries). We saw something called a pie shake on the menu, looked at each other, and proceeded to discuss how yucky that sounded. But the waitress convinced us, and we ordered it. They literally put a slice of pie in a blender with ice cream, so it was a milkshake with pieces of pie at the bottom. It was really tasty!

From Lewiston we were only 340 miles from Portland. But a long 340 miles it turned out to be. SE Washington/ NE Oregon is a desert. It is the area between the Cascades and the Rockies, and they get very little rain there. It was really hot and although the gorge was pretty, I was miserable. I'm glad Zoey was in such good spirits and really excited about riding along the Columbia River, because I was really grouchy for a few days.

Riding out of Lewiston up a big hill we met Sean, a cyclist from Tacoma, WA, who had rode the Great Divide Trail (a mountain biking route) for the past month and was heading west. We ended up riding with Sean for 4 days along the gorge. He was big into swimming and would find any excuse to jump in the river. It was fun bike in a group of 3, and having a third person definitely stirred the dynamic. We would cook together and exchange funny stories from our trip.

In Dayton, WA we stayed with Genie C, a wonderful woman who would end up being our last host of the trip. She was incredibly kind and had the most beautiful gardens. She was growing citrus, herbs, fruits, vegetables and even hops! She cooked us (and Sean) a delicious meal of Ratatouille and salad with everything fresh from her gardens. She even gave us some veggies to take with us and cook along the way.

The next morning we left with huge swiss chard leaves strapped on the top of my bike, and garlic, onions, and squash safely tucked away in my panniers. It was another hot day, and we had planned to stay in a park about 50 miles away. When we got to the park, we were confused to find no camping signs everywhere. The ACA maps had made a mistake, I suppose. We quickly decided to camp there anyway, which ended up being a poor decision indeed.

We woke up the next morning to find that Sean and I both had 2 flat tires from the puncturevine weed which is actually the most obnoxious plant ever. I had a total of 7(!!!!!) punctures in my tubes. It took me and sean 2 tries to find them all with the help of the river, and I went through an entire patch kit that way.

It seemed that everyday after that we started the day with flat tires. The days all blended together and were all extremely hot. But with each passing day we got closer and closer to Portland, and after that first campsite that wasn't really a campsite the rest of the places we stayed resembled lush, shaded oases compared to the surrounding desert.

After much deliberation, we crossed from Washington into Oregon at Biggs, OR near Maryhill State Park. The Washington Side was less shaded and went through less towns, but had emptier roads. The Oregon side went through bigger and more interesting towns, but required us to ride on the freeway for portions of it. It ended up being a great decision to ride on the Oregon side, as the freeways weren't that bad and we got to ride on some seriously cool bike paths.

With 100 miles to go, we met up with Zoey's friend Peter from Oberlin in The Dalles, OR. In the Dalles we started to see spots of trees- signs that the cascades were close! We also had a distant view of Mt. Hood as we rode along the freeway- it is a snowcapped peak at 11,000 feet that was something visible (and beautiful) to bike towards.

That night we were picked up in Hood River by Peter's dad, Sal, and brought to their apple orchard in Parkdale, OR. We had some delicious apple cider and lasagna for dinner, and huckleberry pancakes for breakfast. Peter's mom drove us back to hood river in the morning and we started our final ride. Hood River is a town known as the windsurfing capital of the country- and we did encounter some fierce headwinds riding along the gorge. But after so much build up and warnings about the wind we were mentally prepared and they didn't seem too bad. Hood River is on the east side of the range, but is a far cry from the desert. It was very lush there, but not even compared to what was to come.

From Hood River to Portland we rode on the interstate for a bit, and then got on a bike path. The bike path was a section of the Old Highway 30 that hadn't been re-done for modern cars since the interstate opened. The path was made for Model T's and was pretty narrow. It went through a rainforest and really cool tunnels, and definitely was the coolest bike path of the trip. When it ended we continued on Highway 30 (for the rest of it we had to share the road with cars) and rode by some amazing waterfalls, including Multnomah Falls, which is the largest waterfall in the US after Niagara Falls. The air was so moist and there were mile long stretches of road where we did not see the sun. I loved every minute of shade!

We stopped a lot that day and generally took a long time at places we stopped, including many blackberry bushes on the side of the road. In Springdale Zoey ran over a huge rock and got a pinch flat on her front tire, so Peter and I waited up ahead while she patched it. She was pumping up the tire after successfully patching the tube when suddenly all the air came out. It turned out that she had ripped the valve completely off the tube- an impressive feat- but one that unfortunately involved Peter and I biking back uphill to give her a new tube- our last one. We finally got rolling again at around 6:30 with 30 miles to go until downtown portland... we knew it would be a late night.

We rode through the suburbs for a bit before hopping on the Springwater Corridor Bike Path, that took us all the way to the Willamette River. It was amazing to finally be in Portland- to know that we had done it. We had reached our goal with intense determination and lots of help along the way. Waiting for us in Portland were warm beds at Peter's house and my cousin (more like sister) Lia, who had flown up to Portland to see me and to go to a wedding a few days later. It was a sweet ending, and made even sweeter by the surprise visit from Zoey's brother Gabe who rang the doorbell the next morning. It was like a huge family reunion in Portland, and we spent the day walking around and relaxing.

I was so tired that day- I could barely walk at times and just wanted to sleep. When I was biking everyday I was in this mode where I couldn't let myself get sick or feel tired because I knew I had to keep going and push through. Once I stopped biking my body was feeling all the built up exhaustion from the last few months, and it hit me very hard. I'm glad it only lasted a few days.

Zoey flew back to school yesterday, and I leave tomorrow. It doesn't feel like the end of summer- it feels like I should get home and summer should start! Its almost like time stopped while we were biking, and now it should resume.

Please check back for a few more posts as I attempt to process what just happened in the past 2.5 months. I know I have changed a lot from this trip and really grown as a person, although it is hard to know exactly how. I will also be adding more photos to this post tomorrow from my non-phone camera.