After a full day's rest of loafing around Lewis and Clark State Park, we felt energized for our day. I had previously secured us a night with a Warm Showers host in Longview. The host- Marti encouraged us to sleep late and leave late because it was an easy ride and they would not be home until after 2 or 3. We left camp at 9 and headed out. Different than other mornings, the sun was already beating strongly at that early hour. Cristina kept having issues with her right shifter on her Surly Disc Trucker. When we made our morning nutrition and pee stop, I tightened her shifter. We forged on ahead, knowing we would be stopping in Castle Rock for lunch. We reached Castle Rock, sweaty and ready for some time out of the 90' day. We found a sweet bookstore/cafe shop for a refueling of caffeine. A few doors down, we dined at a small cafe- enjoying amazing turkey, provolone and cranberry relish paninis. After we ate, Cristina headed into the coffee shop for some ice cream and I to the bakery across the street for a donut. When I returned, Cristina had already finished her ice cream and declared that her shifter broke. In pieces. This is bad. Very bad. Basically her bike would be unridable up hills, as she wouldn't be able to change gears. With a load of 50 lbs on your bike- shifting gears is absolutely necessary to get up hills, unless you prefer to walk them. (Walking hills is totally okay, too.) Since she already ate her ice cream, and there was nothing I could do for her, I sat down and ate my custard filled, chocolate glazed donut. We ascertained that there was not a single bike shop in town. Cristina was muffling a complete freakout. I figured we would have to hitchhike to Marti's place. (I was also navigating over the phone how to handle my puppy having been sprayed by a skunk the night before.) As I calmly ate my donut, I messaged Marti and told her the situation. Behold! Marti offered to scoop us up. We sat tight, sweating in the midday sun, calling bike shops in Longview. None seemed to have the necessary part for Cristina's bike. Marti picked us up and took us directly to a bike shop she deals with all the time. The team that worked on Cristina's bike, and came up with a temporary fix, enough to ride to Portland. Sad little Billie hiding in the corner because she does not love to take baths. What a cycle tourist eats in a day... I thought I would document what I ate the last day of my cycling tour. It started with pancakes for breakfast at the Fines. My first snack was 3 fig energy balls. Then I had Kind "breakfast bars". Then I enjoyed a tasty toasty egg and cheese bagel and a cookie. We toasted with ginger beers when we arrived in Portland. For dinner I scarfed down a brisket sandwich. Finally, to cap off the day, we put ourselves in sugar comas after eating Voodoo doughnuts. Our last cycling day into Portland was fairly smooth only because the hills weren't killer. Cristina's shifter gave her issues most of the ride, which really sucked. We stayed with another WS host, Heidi and Ken, more cool folks. Pictured on this page is their cat, Angela, lying on the bed with us. We got out and checked out some of the sites including going over three of their many bridges. Comments are closed.
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AuthorHi, I'm Reverend J, a queer+ sober wanderer, activist, writer and ordained minister. Archives
November 2020
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