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.