The flight to Portland took me through Phoenix. I can’t figure out why the hell anyone would want to live out in the middle of the desert. I guess the last laugh will be on them when they don’t have any water in a few years. Suckers.
From 30,000 feet the Grand Canyon and the Rockies look like toy landscape models. Except if you jump off of either one of them, it’ll kill you.
Flying over Oregon was beautiful. The pilot took us right by Mount Hood. It’s covered in snow now and towers over everything else in the Cascades. I got a nice picture from the airplane window.
Portland has amazing public transit. I took the MAX train from the airport to downtown. The great thing about it is that the train goes directly to where everyone is. There are no train stations or turnstiles or any of that business. You just step into it from the sidewalk. Ticket machines are located everywhere, and there are random inspections, but other than that it’s just based on the honor system.
I approve.
Sarah picked me up near the city center and we lugged all my crap to her apartment. I took a while to unwind, take a shower, and put on some semi-clean clothes. She took me back to the train and we rode up to the hills and walked down through the arboretum/park. Trees! Swingsets! Views!
For dinner we went to a dinner theatre and saw Stranger Than Fiction while we drank beer, ate chips and salsa, and I inhaled a turkey bacon sandwich.
This is life in Portland.
I haven’t even been here for 24 hours and I love it already.
I woke up late today and walked downtown to get some lunch and absorb some of the sights. The river / lake here is nice and there’s a neat little pedestrian bridge that meanders across it. Lots of dirt paths. Tons of joggers out.
Finally around 2 pm I got hungry and decided to eat at La Copa. My waitress there was very nice, and they weren’t busy, so we chatted for a bit. Turns out she’s in a band called Little Aurora. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to listen to them on good speakers yet, but they sound interesting.
Most of today I tried to find someone to box up my bike. Kinko’s wouldn’t do it. UPS wouldn’t do it. But the gigantic bike shop not too far from Caleth’s apartment did it. I decided to bring the bike with me on the plane instead of waiting on it to be shipped to Oregon.
I took my bike apart today. It sits in pieces on Caleth’s floor.
We went out on the town tonight. Got 3/4 lb burgers at Casino El Camino, on the recommendation by Patrick. Hit several bars afterwards until we finally ended up at a place called Headhunters. Leatherbag was playing and they were really awesome. Alt-country type stuff. After the show as I was standing outside talking to a photographer, the lead singer came up to me and gave me a copy of their album. Nice!
Caleth and I then drove up into the north hills to visit some friends of his. They were all really nice and welcomed me to Texas, except for this one girl, whom Caleth said I would like — she was being a pill. He told me I should ask her out to lunch the next day, so I did (via voicemail) and she never called back. Some people…
Anyway, we were up until about 3:30 am, enjoying the Austin night life. According to sources, Austin may have the highest amount of bars per capita of any major city in the U.S… Even if it’s not true, it seems like it.
January 23, 2007
I woke up this morning to the sound of a park ranger’s truck. They left a note on the picnic table telling me that I needed to pay for camping on my way out. Since I saw signs that indicated the fee was $4 per person, I thought I’d be honest. So I stopped at the office and paid, only to find out it’s $12 per campsite and $4 per person. What highway robbery.
The 32 mile ride to Austin was painful. I thought I would never make it. But I did.
I found my way to the downtown area, picked out a place for lunch, and took a rest. A girl came in not long after me, and I asked her for some advice on what to do in Austin. She sat down, introduced herself as Courtney, and we had an hour-long talk about Austin, biking, art, music, and other things. She said that later in the afternoon her roommate would be working at an art gallery down the street and that he might have some more advice. So I went there later too, where I met him and his friend Robin. Robin suggested that I eat at a local vegan restaurant that has an all-you-can-eat for $12 every night. I think that’s a good plan for tomorrow.
The library here has free internet. I reserved one of the 15-minute terminals and used it to buy a ticket on Southwest airlines. Austin to Portland, $100 total. Tomorrow I can disassemble my bike, box it up, and send it to Portland through UPS. This is the end of the road for the bike trip. I never thought I’d make it this far and I figure I should quit now while I still have good memories of the trip. Plus I can start my job in Portland earlier and make more money. Maybe I’ll upgrade to a motorcycle.
January 22, 2007
Riding from the middle of nothing to the middle of nowhere near Austin can be described in one word: hills.
Combined with a constant 20 mph headwind, today was my least enjoyable day so far. I averaged maybe 8 mph, almost half my normal pace. As the storm front moved in, so too did the cold damp wetness. I felt like giving up 1,000 times today. But I pushed on.
Knowing that I couldn’t make it all the way to Austin, I decided to stop at Bastrop State Park, about 30 miles out. Darkness was moving in so I quickly set up my tent, gathered what clean clothes I could find, and took a long hot shower.
Though I wasn’t hungry, I crammed down a peanut butter sandwich and two cans of tuna. I know I needed it. Being on the road is a strange thing… you don’t really get hungry… at least, not like the normal growling stomach type. But you know you need to eat. Yet you don’t really get full. It’s more of a love/hate relationship with food right now. Hard to explain.