Day 3: Rowena to Tygh Valley

Woke up early and rode straight to The Dalles, which I still can't remember how to pronounce correctly. I stopped in at a coffee shop, made the blog posts I wrote earlier, and had my first conversation about riding across the country. It was consistent with the conversations I've had since - "Why would you do that?", "I know someone who does long bike rides", "I always wanted to do something like that", and "Wow, I could never do that". My responses are generally "Life circumstances made it convenient", "That's neat", "I'm lucky to have this option", and nervous laughter, respectively.

After the coffee shop, I rode up to Dufur and met my first travelers on the way. Our interaction was brief: I found out that their entire plan for the day was to make Dufur, only 13 miles but ~1400 feet up. I told them I was going to Tygh Valley, which was twice that distance and twice that climb. They were very impressed. I didn't tell them that I had made this plan without checking the elevation profile. Thanks to a delicious wrap from the coffee shop in Dufur, though, I did crawl along in low gears long enough to make it to Tygh Valley. I bought food for SOAK, convinced the gate staff that yes, I really did ride there on a bike, and got in. The details of SOAK are a separate post.

Here's a pun in Tygh Valley that I appreciated:

Here's a sign I was very happy to see, marking the end of my climbing for the day:

Day 2: Beaverton to Rowena

This day was pretty great. Immediately after starting, the sky opened up and I pulled all my rain gear out from the bottom of my pack. Not the most pleasant, but like before, I was encouraged to know that I can deal with it. I found a fruit stand along old highway 30 in the Columbia gorge, bought a magic marionberry pie that made the sky clear up, and continued on pretty much as far as I could. I didn't really have a plan for where I'd stay, so I ended up camping in a hidden spot near Rowena. Downside of this spot: had to stay hidden, lots of thistles, frequent noisy trains. Upside: free!

I tried taking some pictures of the gorge, but like Tillamook, nothing I could shoot would be unique - I was just one of several thousand that probably photographed everything I saw that day. The one exception is this little tree that bravely stood up to a landslide: 

Day 1: Tillamook to Beaverton

I had no idea if I could do 60 miles plus 1500 ft up in one day, so I was pretty anxious to begin with. I basically got off the Wave bus, found some water tat I could call ocean and dip my back tire into to mark the official start, and started pedaling. I ended up not taking the most direct route then getting lost on top of that, so my total ended up being closer to 80 miles. This was exhausting, but encouraging for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, I was pressured by the same anxiety that I'm trying to run away from, so I didn't think about taking pictures. Tillamook is pretty commonly photographed, so look it up on your own, I guess. I'm shit at taking pictures anyway.