Today was a special day. Yet everything about it was ordinary. I woke up late, had breakfast
with my dad, wrote postcards with a cup of tea, and was on my way through the dense
forests of the Columbia River Gorge by the late morning. My trail followed an old highway,
and was covered in mosses and old stones. I stopped by a salmon hatchery,
lost my balance while stopping the bike, and snapped my headphone chord, so for the rest of the
day I had to use my old broken ones.
While exposed, the wind was present, but my road was hardly exposed. I wound through famous waterfalls,
and decided to skip a 500m climb through the forest in a shoulder-less road in favour of a final goodbye to the freeway. Boy oh boy
what a goodbye it was. Flat, well-paved, and no wind, and at my fitness, I just enjoyed
flying through the rest of the Columbia River. Eventually, I got to the urban sprawl of
Portland, crossed into the city, and snaked my way up a big hill through a
graveyard to Lewis and Clark college, backtracking for about two miles since I dropped my sandal
at a gas station.
I'd be lying if I really trivialized it like this. I did spend about half an hour at the Entering
Portland sign, just trying to digest the last two months. But all of these musings belong in the
epilogues.
There, I my dad was waiting for me. I dropped my things off, hopped into the car, and
raided the local Goodwill for essentially a household's worth of junk. Towels, sheets,
clothes, a lamp, pillows. We ate pizza, and made it back in time for the first
staff meeting of the summer.
This is a biking blog, not a mathcamp blog, so I think that this is where I'll stop
the story for the day.
The Image Gallery
Entering the old highway bike trail
The highway went through a tunnel. Check out how old it looks
This is a salmon hatchery. Pretty cool, but I broke my headphones...
So I was biking along, enjoying the hills and the road, when suddenly,
I crossed this bullshit. In the middle of the trail!
The long stairway lead to a higher portion of the highway along a ridge. It was a bit
scary, but damn look at those old school fence poles!
The first waterfall I saw sneaked up through the trees.
Meow.
The second falls I passed through were the Horsetail falls.
Another pretty picture of the highway, and a closed tunnel.
Check out these slopes!
The third, falls I passed through were the Multnomah falls.
There were lots of tourists there.
The final falls I saw were the Wahkeena falls.
The geography really was striking.
Just as I was biking down the exit of the freeway, the highway gave me one last gift.
In Portland, I mostly rode a bike trail through the city
I didn't get to downtown Portland. I guess I'm saving that for another day, but
I did see it as I was crossing the Willamette river on my way to Lewis and Clark College.
I made it!
And here's everything I packed. Don't worry, it will all be properly organized and
catalogued and documented tomorrow, after I get some sleep.
The Map
Today I biked for 82km over the course of four hours and 45 minutes, and a total uphill of 562m. But really, I think the
telling stat of the day is that in the past 56 days, I biked for around 5600km over the course of more than three hundred
hours, and a total uphill of at least 20km.
It's been quite a ride. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the epilogues!
