Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The end? NEVER!

There will be many more adventures... and in some ways, [readjusting to society, being stationary, and interacting on a regular basis with more people than myself and my husband] is just as much of an adventure. And yes, I felt the brackets were necessary to make that sentence understandable.

So hit-and-run.

We never did find the guy, but everything turned out just fine. Went to church, were fed by people, taken in and housed by the pastor for three nights, driven around town on errands, and finally driven to Klamath Falls to catch our train. It left early in the morning, so we rode over the night before, hoping to either stay with Weisses or find a couch to surf. Called a few times, couldn't get a hold of them, and finally gave up to go to the library.... where we were intercepted by Duane. 'Are you Lydia?' Ya. Those angels drove all around town looking for us, then loaded our stuff up and took us to their house. On the way they stopped and we got bike boxes. They fed us dinner, gave us a bed to sleep in, wine to drink, tv to watch, AND got up super early to drive us to the station.

Like I said. Angels.

Train was fun, and as always, both too short and too long. Got to Portland at 4ish, took forever to get our stuff put back together, and left around 530? maybe. Hit the library, but it was closing, so the getting-out-of-Portland part became interesting. We eventually found a map that gave us enough of an idea of the area to get out, and all was good. Rode up past a bunch of small towns that I can't remember, and eventually camped under a train bridge. We were woken up by a train going over said bridge at about 6 in the morning. We both thought we were going to die... it took a couple minutes to realize what it was.

Then we rode in the rain. Lots of it. Made it to Rainier, last stop in Oregon, and were looking at this ENORMOUS bridge, longer than the one in North Bend, when we were given a ride by a guy with a Ford Transport. Awesome car, more awesome dude. He took us to Walmart so we could buty a tarp. This venture turned into awesomeness as well... on our way out, asking for directions out of town (it's way beyond pitch black at this point, and it's raining like it's the equater), and a guy offered to let us camp in his backyard.

Took a shower, got my eardrums blasted by his kids, ate a brownie, had a fire.... good times. First time that happened all trip.

Biked through small town after small town on our way to Centralia... stopped to play on the train tracks and squish pennies, and we almost got hit by a train. Those things are sneakier than the tide. BUT we did squish some pennies.

So we're biking through Winlock, DEAD tired, scrounging change for coffee, and this nice gentleman strikes up a conversation. He leaves, we leave, and about 20 minutes later as we're stopping on the orad to pump tires, this truck pulls up behind us... with the same guy and his daughter. They took us home like happy little stray puppies, fed us, gave us showers, gave us a bed, movie privileges, coffee, beer, breakfast, AND a ride to Centralia the next morning. Merle and Kathleen... you guys were lovely. I do have to admit I was a bit terrified when we walked in, though. It was one of those insta-god-bush houses, where you step inside and think 'Fuck. We're going to horribly offend them inside of 3 minutes, and then we'll be back on the road.' But no... I was reminded once again that god-fearing, red-white-and-blue-loving, sarah-palin-reading couples can still be nice people. It's not what you do/think/believe... it's who/how you are.

Rode from Centralia to Tacoma, caught the bus to Seattle, biked to the treehouse, and the end.

Miah's got tons of interviews, I took up my old job doing jewelry, and things are looking good, for the most part.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

CRESCENT CITY DRIVERS SUCK

Jeremiah was hit by a car last night. He is thankfully ok, excepting some mild bruising, but the bike is not. Dickwad drove over his back wheel. Makes a nice taco shape now. About the same curve as a pringle. We're a bit stranded, but doing well.

So the adventure. We left Crescent City to bike down to Arcata/Eureka (to look for work and stay near the coast and redwoods), encountered a lot of rain and a large hill along with oncoming darkness, and then remembered that there was a city bus that went from Crescent City to Arcata. Being only a couple miles out, we decided to cruise back down the hill and catch the bus instead. Our previous encounters with this bus system had left a good impression - we were able to get from the state park to town, 10 miles, for 1.50 each. Figured the long trip would maybe cost 10 or 15 bucks at the most, but we were willing to pay it to get there and start turning in resumes.

It cost 25 each. Out of the question. So here we are at 830 on a Saturday night, soaked and frozen, contemplating cheap hotels rather than riding 5 miles to find camping. We priced a few and were on our way to another when we met Dickwad.

Coasting along the eastern sidewalk of S101 at pedestrian speeds, Miah 15 feet in front of me, passing the entrance to Jack in the Box. Dude comes cruising out of the parking lot going for a left turn... directly at Miah. Like he wasn't even there. So Miah swerved into the street to avoid him, and Dickwad -kept going-. Drove right into him, knocked him down into the street in a tangle of legs and bicycle, and continued over his rear tire. I was speechless, and Dickwad looked straight at me as he drove off without slowing a bit. Got his license and what the car looked like, filed a police report, and began strategizing. Poor bike wouldn't move at all; the tire's done for.

The funny part is that we ended up pitching 50 for a motel room within walking/carrying distance.... what we would have spent to get a ride 70 miles south.

Lessons here... trust your instincts, and don't trust Crescent City drivers.

Earlier, waiting for the bus, a truck rolled up to a light for a right turn; when the light turned red on him, he immediately swerved right and drove across the curb, into the park, down the sidewalk, and continued on his merry way. No brake lights; no hesitation. I hate this town.

BUT.

Since the library is closed Sunday/Monday, and we couldn't afford another night's lodging, we figured a church would be our best bet. So this morning we hauled all our stuff and the dead bike ten blocks to the United Methodist church and told them our predicament. They were sweethearts. We were driven to someone's house for lunch, I'm currently on the computer at the pastor's house, where she's letting us stay for the night, and we've been offered rides around town if we need to go to the food bank or bike shop or whatever. Also we got free coffee. And a bag of cheese. And pizza.

So now we're heading back to Seattle asap; this misadventure has dipped us under our monetary limit and we need to hightail it back to the safety net of jobs and familiar territory.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Ten Days Later!

Goodbye no sales tax, hello booze at gas stations. I guess every place has its own charms.

We finally left Florence on the 22nd. We've gone through Gardiner, Reedsport, Winchester Bay, Lakeside, North Bend, Coos Bay, Bandon, Langlois, Port Orford, Gold Beach, Brookings, and Crescent City, outside which we're currently camped. Gardiner was sad... a dying little town that used to be a thriving port until people stopped sailing. Brookings would have been just another town, except that we were given a rack and a half of ribs. You have not seen ravenous eating until you've watched two hungry bikers mow down on pure, delicious protein.

You could -see- the heat change coming into Brookings. The California climate is just a bit more humid and warm, and it's visible in this thin fog hanging over everything even when it's clear. Hazy days, not lazy days.

We've seen so many amazing things recently. The last push down the coast was beautiful; I know I won't remember all of the things here, but I'll try. Outside Gold Beach was this huge rock - 'kissing rock' - with cracks all through it and wonderful climbing. By cracks I mean anywhere from tiny to 6 feet wide, running 30 feet into the rockface. Pretty wonderful, but definitely an easy place to get fucked up by the tide coming in. There seem to be a million big rocks like that just sitting out off the coast, or on the coast, or a mile inland in somebody's back yard, but kissing rock was one of the largest. Maybe 150 feet tall? not sure at all, and almost as wide.

We saw a 'giraffe swan' - so named by me because that is what it looked like. Was probably just an albino heron or some such. Do those even exist? We see a lot of herons. There's usually one hanging out in the river when we camp by one.

Lily pad pond dried out so it was a jumble of stems.. almost all the water was gone, and the plants were scrunched down in this thick tangle, pads tossed into the air and curling in the heat above 8 inches of shriveled stem over the water.

North Bend had a bridge that took us half an hour to walk over. Aaaaand it had THE most bumpy roads and sidewalks in the world, and the nastiest 'nice' laundromat ever. 17 bucks on laundry, but we did get our sleeping bags and all our clothing clean and mostly dry.

Every bookstore inside of 150 miles is now our acquaintance, and none of them have The Dragon Reborn.

Wind sucks sometimes.

We went to church one day, caught the last half of the sermon, got half a cup of free coffee, got a box of free food, and were fed elk soup at this family's house. The whole experience was very good and moderately awkward.

Myrtlewood gift shop in Langlois was amazing. Aside from the awesome everything that was there, the work spaces were amazing. This sweet lady showed us around the whole place and told us stories. Her husband's work station for epoxy was the best. The resin had dripped all down over the edges of the benches after pouring it on the wood pieces, and it made these rows of epoxy icycles. 300 or so foot-long yellow spear heads..

Sixes River for camping on our anniversary, where we saw a beaver, tiny frogs, and a heron, and didn't see what we hope was an elk.

Humbug Mountain. Gorgeous. Saw a branch hanging that looked like a dead antelope, and my brain taught me that the antelope got there because of a flying bear. This flybear had gone exploring at the 'wildlife safari walkthrough' thingety near Port Orford, and talked with a tiger who told stories about how his great grandfather used to hunt antelope in Africa. So the flybear flew there and got one and flew back with it and hid it in a tree on Humbug Mountain.

Wall of rock that was green. It looked like the color of sagebrush in the springtime, or a sulferous crystal or something. Other wall of rock that was black and lined and wonderful, under a pink sunset and some hanging grass coming into Gold Beach.

Cape Sebastian was ridiculously difficult to climb. We are getting massively strong. We're not just people.... we're mega people! (If you have not seen it, locate and watch a movie called Mega Pirhana.)

Tallest bridge in Oregon, Thomas Creek, was 345 feet above ground and pretty unimpressive for how talked up it was. And then we passed 'Bruce's Bones Creek'. Sorry daddy :)

For our celebration times, we bought booze in Brookings and hauled it the 20-some miles down to Jedediah Smith State Park. A bottle fits in a bag, but the 12pack of Hamms we got couldn't, so I carried it as a backpack, because I am that fucking awesome. I have a picture of it, and when I eventually find a way to put pictures online, you will see.

The redwoods are lovely. Yesterday we found this amazing spot on the river, though, and it really was one of the most fascinating and beautiful places I've ever seen. Beyond description. Soapstone sculpted into everything you can imagine, including a giant octopus and a giant angry man thing that come alive after sunset and eat bikers who stayed to late. Swirls and twists and cavities, lines of marbled rock, patches of smooth bright white crystal 2 feet tall running as a line through the rock, clear water in a tiny, narrow river dropping into deep pools and running over shallow sandy and rocky bottoms.... SO amazing.

Jed Smith has awesome Hiker Biker sites, but we can't use them because they shut that area down for construction.... so they put the HBs in a tent site, which we've had to ourselves :) It's been good. Although I should have learned my lesson last time I went biking after a drink, I apparently haven't yet. After a good amount of liquid poison I thought it would be a good idea to bike to the bathroom.... at least I put my helmet on first. Someday I'll learn. Maybe I'll just put a huge sign on my bike that says 'Have you been drinking? No bikey for drunky!!' or some such. Or maybe I should lock up my bike before I begin booziness. Whatever it takes...

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

About Jude. Also, Florence is a vacuum.

Jude is a sweetheart, and I feel the need to chronicle it here. She shared her campsite with us, including her firewood and her vodka. She gave us several cigarettes. She let me borrow her phone to call home when she learned that I missed Maci. She let us stay the second night with her for free. She bought us a box of tacos. She moved our stuff, including broken bike, to hiker-biker camping. She gave us her leftover box of firewood. She drove us to town, stopped at the 7/11 to look up bike shops, drove us to the bank, and dropped us off at the library. She offered to show us around Florence and the dunes and the casino, although we never did any. She gave us her address and phone number so that we could let her know if we were ever in her area. Jude, you're a sweetheart.

Florence.

It's Tuesday afternoon. We got here on Friday afternoon. Plan was to leave today, but the new fork got left out of the shipment to the bike shop, so we have to stay til tomorrow. Bike... her frame is bent, and the fork's shot. New fork, and dealing with the bent frame. It'll mean I go a little slower and -really- watch out with my new super-fast steering. My knee is a nice purple, but it's feeling a lot better. In other news, I have 26 bug bites on the outside of my right calf. No idea how many are elsewhere... I just counted the most concentrated region. I have a lot, though. It's because I'm so sweet....? All bugs love me. I'm like the sin of bug world.. attractive and delicious, and most often you get away with it when you take a bite, but sometimes you're discovered and fucking SMASHED. Death to all bugs I find near me.

Yesterday when we were walking back to camp, I thought I saw a butterfly on the road. It landed and turned into a grasshopper! Of course I had to startle it to show Miah... ya. Thing flew off, and under its croaky little lifeless grasshopper shell it had these startling blue-green wings with a yellow stripe across them. Lovely.

We ate a pound of turkey last night, mashed with an egg, ginger, sage, cayenne, and salt, and deepfried in italian salad dressing.

Can't think of much else interesting, except that the 4 miles between camp and town is magically getting shorter every day.

At this point we don't know if we'll make it to the redwoods in time for our anniversary as planned, but we will still go there. Then we're going to push like crazy and get to Denver by the end of October :)

Send me emails. I have one, you know... I feel like an information vomit machine, and those things run on different information. Gotta know what's going on with other people.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Crashycrashcrash.

Durp. And awesome camping.

So after we escaped the Pacific, we had a day of hills followed by way too much campground. Met a lovely gentleman who made us instant coffee in his RV, then took off and made it past the mountainy hills and through a tunnel, and stopped to look at the sea lions and Heceta Lighthouse from an overlook. Talking with this guy sitting on the edge of a cliff in a camp chair, and we discover that the violin is not with us. He drove Miah back to get it... where we had coffee that morning. Thankyou world for making some honest people. Also thankyou to driver dude whose name we forgot - he gave us a Golden Eagle pass, which gets us free day use of parks with fees, and half off some campgrounds.

Cruised into Florence, sold a wallet, headed out to the Honeyman Campground, where we planned to get the hiker-biker spot for 5 a person. The sweetest lady in the world, Jude, was registering and offered to split her campsite with us, so we did. Better for everyone. We ended up staying there a second night as well, because I'm an idiot.

We're cruising into town to hunt down some liquids, and I thought it was so fun to ride without a pack on that I was speeding as fast as possible, racing a car out of the campground. Giant lady termite smashes into my front, so I decide to get it off. Stop pedaling, glance down to find the bug, look up, still in the center of the road at a good speed.... look down one more time to brush the bug off, and when I look up, there's a giant freaking log right next to me. Couldn't avoid it, so I went limp and went with it. Flipped over the handlebars, smashed up my knee some, bent in the front fork of the bike.... ya. Sigh. Miah was a sweetheart and carried the crunched bike back to camp while I used his as a scooter, and then he went to town to get ice. So now we're staying here a third night, waiting for the bike shop to open. Silly Sundays. Bike should be ok though, and I seem to be in surprisingly good working order. Couldn't walk last night, but today it's ok - stiff and bruised, but functional. Thankyou Esther for getting me through that one.

Friday, September 16, 2011

We're in Florence. Ten days away from our anniversary. I wanna find work on the coast, probably after the anniversary, and rejuvenate our finances a little. The coast is amazing. Purple streaks across the sky with a calm darkish blue pushing through crossing a bridge going 15 miles an hour with the wind blowing in your face laughing like a corporation who just took over Target. Good times.

I also found Why I Write by George Orwell for a $1.25 at a gas station. Yup. Gonna read the shit outta that.

Just more stuff and things.

This week has been fun and slow. Lots of sightseeing, what -felt- like lots of biking, but not actually that much distance covered. It's Friday afternoon and we're in Florence, about to head out to the dunes. 75 miles in 5 days is pretty slow by biking standards, but that's not what it's about, is it?

Monday was pretty amazing. Long and frustrating, but we were the masters of it. After our shower, we went to the library, chilled on the beach, had a lovely relaxing time, and finally left town around 3. We made it down to Newport that night. On the way we split the most delicious bowl of clam chowder at the Sea Hag in Depoe Bay - courtesy of an anniversary gift from Regina :) If you pass through there, go eat clam chowder. I hate clams and it was delicious.

Passed Boiler Bay and saw awesome cliffs. Sorry for using awesome so much to describe things.. there's just not much else I can say. One cliff had this huge sheet of dark gray rock hanging down off it at an outward angle, like cliff was a girl with hair blowing out into the bay. Pretty fascinating. Also there was a fenced off area in which we could see a steep drop-down cave with another fence guarding it, but there were too many people around for us to investigate. Sad. Then we hit the otter crest loop. It's a nice little offshoot of the main highway that lasts for a few miles, and the bike route runs along it. VERY LONG HILL. Not as bad as Day Hill, but still challenging. Halfway up as Miah was struggling immensely and I was feeling more in shape than I thought I was, we discovered that his gears were all off and he'd been going up the whole damn thing in the hardest one. So he's basically superman. Ogreman. Dug out our lights just in time to coast down the hill and experience our first night-biking. We were trying to push to Newport to find the guys from the last night who had offered us a pizza if we met up with them, but we never found them. We did end up playing some pool and having a beer before heading out to find CAMPING: The Most Awesome Part Of The Day.

We came into a state park at midnight, tired as shit, not caring about the 12 bucks we'd have to pay. The ranger station was closed, so we pitched up and planned to pay in the morning. Come morning, no one approached us, and we weren't about to volunteer money, so we grabbed some free coffee and books, and headed out like stealthmasters.

Next day we went backwards. Finally made it to the bike shop and got a new axle, bumped into Regina again, free coffee and muffins, sat on a couch for an hour, ate stale cheetos that we found... good times. Loaded up at the food bank, went to a campground on the other side of town, and payed up. (Couldn't go back to the first one, 'cause they might have recognized us, etc..) Ate a FEAST. The bank gave us this giant bag of stuffed potato things - basically giant tater tots stuffed with cheese. Ya. Beach adventures, more showering, and bed. (Beach adventures will be published when I write them. It was pretty awesome. Giant sea slug banthas and such.)

We showered again the next day. Why not if you can? Pretty uneventful day. Made it down about 5 miles past Waldport, didn't find a free camping area we thought was there, and crashed.

And then yesterday.. Smelt Sands park is amazing. We saw it at high tide, with the water crashing up through this huge fissure thing. It had made a natural bridge over this huge undercut cave thing, and we got nice and salty trying to get a closer look. Settling down near the coast is beginning to call to us. Next we stopped at Devil's Churn, which was probably the coolest, most engrossing thing we've seen the whole trip. Another watery chasm/fissure thing, but waaaaaaaaaay longer. Couple hundred feet climb down to the mouth of it, then we hiked -very- carefully all the way around it. Also seen near high tide. It was pretty spectacular. Maybe 200 feet of rocky chasm jutting straight into the land, with surging waves crashing up into it, banks undercut, and the chasm goes back another 30 feet or so into the rock with a ceiling above it. Spent the better part of an hour exploring the beach around it, got lost in a million tide pools, saw the most fascinating rocks - all those striations in the lava flow that looks like a glacier went over it, but all bubbled and pitted from the salt spray, red and black and gray and tan... Daddy, you need to see it. And Ethan, we found you a piece of driftwood there. Cross your fingers that we don't loose it.

Ran into Regina AGAIN. I think she's our bicycle sidekick leapfrog buddy. Ended up camping in the woods, had a fire on the beach at low tide, which was wonderful until we looked up an hour later and saw that the water was about 20 feet from us. Seriously... the Pacific is a sneaky, treacherous, clingy bitch. It once tasted our feet and now it can't get enough. The instant we're not paying attention it comes crawling in to suck the life from us. 'The sea hates you'.. I think it just loves us. It was pretty epic. Got to remember that the tide flooding a foot means a lot more when you're on a flat beach than when you're on a steep one.

Miah says I'm writing a novel. So be it.