~ Yesterday evening I arrived to the city of Roseburg, Oregon, where I am currently relaxing. I am staying with my aunt Siobhan (pronounced shuvvon) and cousin Shainen at their comfortable abode alongside the Umpqua River. Many wonderful experiences have already captured my heart here; an abundance of delicious fresh plums, floating & swimming in the river, and what I dream about for hours while I ride ~ a bed :)
Last I connected to the digiblog I mentioned that more artsy posts would follow, but a few days passed by in the blink of an eye and I was on the road ago, so it's more road time stories!
Before jumping to the travels, I would like to share my feelings for the hospitality I received in that funky town of Arcata ~ Thank you so much to all the Q street goofballs for welcoming me in, showing me around, and not making too much fun of me :) You are all such beautiful people, I hope that my energy has entered into your spirits and that you will continue follow the flow of nature ~
~ As much as I have learned about living in the present, once my bike was fixed & riding smooth with a plethora of new components, the countdown was on until the Northerly travels commenced once again. I stayed in town a few extra days so that I could leave Arcata with a calm energy, after all it had offered to me. On Friday I went with a jolly crew to my first barn dance, and although I didn't feel any incredible connection with the style music or the MC, I was overwhelmed by the energy of all the happy people, being silly and dancing around (mostly in circles). The following day I participated in the removal of some invasive plant species at the local marsh, which thoroughly tired me out & built up my appetite for the delicious local salsa I prepared in the evening. Nice mellow company and conversation brought the day to an end and left me eager to commence my Northerly travels in the morning :)
Sunday came around without much anxiety, and after a lot of organizing, packing, and reassuring myself I wasn't leaving behind all of my super important material possessions, I was on the road (sometime past mid day). I made it as far as Patrick's Point, just North of Trinidad, before stopping for the day. It was a wonderful choice, the park was enormous, and the hiker biker section was completely secluded from the rest of the campsites. There were only two other cyclists staying the night, Mark & Emily from Ottawa, they were just the easy-to-laugh type of people I needed to get me back into my road spirits. Already feeling amazing, I hiked up to a nearby lookout point to catch the climax of the sunset, which sent me into a magical, giggly & euphoric trance as I realized I had never truly watched a full sunset. It was so epic, I felt so in tune with the earth, all of the other static was turned off, and as the sun began to disappear into the ocean, the top portion of it became flat. Having absolutely no idea why this was happening in such a manner, my mind gave in further to the magicalness of the world around me and I giggled :)
On Monday I put my traveling boots back on and made my way towards the border. I was planning on reaching the area around Crescent City, about a 60 mile trek, but upon arriving in Crescent City and not finding a welcoming yard to camp in, I decided to head for the border. I passed by one park just shy of Oregon, but it wasn't calling to me so I continued on as the sun plunged ever closer to the sea. I passed into Oregon without quite realizing it, perhaps I expected crazy men with guns and dogs to search me, I was pleased to have this discover this was a fallacy. Just as the light was reaching an unappealing brightness to ride in, I found myself at the entrance to my first Oregon state park, Harris Beach. In exchange for one piece of paper with the number 5 on it, I was able to clean myself, sleep comfortably in my tent, and enjoy the company of eleven other hiker bikers. The highlight of staying at Harris Beach came with meeting a Belgian couple who was also riding North, a very rare occurrence (riding North, not being from Belgium) with the prevailing winds pushing South. I camped with Yoris & Kelly the next two nights as we traveled up the coast. Following Harris Beach we rode to Humbug Mountain, where there was another lovely hiker biker campground, although the highway was a tad bit noisy. In Humbug I was happy to happen upon another vegan, Andrew from Victoria, BC. We had many lovely conversations about how difficult it is to get the natural food we crave so much, ahh the joys of complaining :P After Humbug we rode to Bandon, where I encountered some mechanical difficulties. My rear tire had been steadily falling apart, and at this point it was no longer fully holding the tube inside of the rim, so it popped out and flatted. I was out of fresh tubes so it was patching time. I patched the first one without the knowledge of why it had flatted (because the tire needed to be replaced) and continued onwards. I made it into the city of Bandon before realizing that the tube was ballooning outside of the tire and causing a bump in my ride. I had a spare tire so I pulled over to let the air out & switch tires, but of course just as I laid the bike on it's side ~ SHPAK ~ the tube exploded. Sitting outside of the Bandon police station, I patched my second tube and put the wheel back on my bike with a new tire, I felt much more confident about making it a few miles before any more issues. Just as I was about to roll onto the road again (no not another disaster!) I was passed by my two Belgian friends who waved and waited for me to ride up to them. Kelly had also had her share of bike problems with a broken spoke, so they were searching for a bike shop. They had spent much of the day hanging out with a local who invited them to spend the night, and they figured it would probably be fine for me to show up as well ~ perfect! ~ After visiting the bike shop, we headed to their hosts house for some much needed rest. The last bit of road before our destination was a gravel road, which I mistakenly attempted to ride on with my heavy load and tiny road tires, w00t for flats! A hat trick of patches for the day brought me to a lovely house with a lovely couch to sleep on, before passing out we shared a lot of good conversation with Brian and his wife (her name I can't recall), Rolley & Olivia (their children, 1 & 3) threw in a good number of EEEEEE!'s and WAHHHHHH!!'s to spice up the evening :)
Yesterday morning (Thursday) I began my escape from the coast. The previous two days had been absolutely brutal with wind, climbing up hills brought only the reward of having to pedal to descend. My route was very simple, head to the 42, which is in Bandon, and take it all of the way East to Roseburg. The first 15 miles of the ride were lovely, the traffic was very light, the road was flat with no wind, and the scenery was a lush green. As the highway intersected with it's northern counterpart in the city of Coquille, it became much busier. Departing Coquille also brought me some undesired information, the destination distance sign completely mismatched with my maps statistics. I had previously thought that the entire ride was somewhere around 65 miles, so I was quite unpleasantly surprised to see a sign, 15 miles into the ride already, stating that Roseburg was still 69 miles away, :|
Oh well, I got over it after about 15 more miles, and the rest of the ride was quite pleasant. I didn't even realize that I had been climbing when I reached the summit of the only notable hill on the highway, so that pleasant surprise pushed the previous unpleasant one way out of thought and I greatly enjoyed my descent towards Roseburg. Arriving in Roseburg, I got a little lost, as usual, and I also got a taste of the nearby interstate freeway, the I-5. I will not soon make the same mistake of entering that car destruction path, even if it is only for a quarter of a mile.
& back to the present! :)
Today I had a wonderful time with Siobhan, Shainen & Ron, my aunt's main squeeze. I intend to return to the river tomorrow, after farmers market of course, and subsist for an hour or two solely from the delicious blackberries growing on the opposite side of the bank. Sunday funday will be my return to the road and I will head to Eugene, which I have heard people speaking of in one of my favorite manners of speaking;
"There's a bunch of damn hippies in Eugene..."
I feel my legs are beginning to tire from the travel, it won't be long now before I settle for a while. How long, I don't know, but it makes me feel good when I think about living on a farm, imagining growing things & eating them, and living together with other people with dirt on their feet and warmth in their unkempt hair.
go be naked and jump in the water
~ cya soon :) peace & love ~
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