To Vernonia (I can smell ocean!)
Jul 30th
Today we left Gresham and went through downtown Portland, into the mountains, and began crossing the Coastal Range on our way to the ocean. I got some great donuts in town at Voodoo, and was relieved of my sweep duty with Laura by Sharif and Heather. The hills were very steep out of town, as were the descents, and we camped tonight for the last time. Our last official night together, we celebrated with some paper plate superlative awards and drinks.
Portland, the city of bridges
Voooooodooooooo
Cool looking coffee from Stumptown....wonder if they tried to do that
Jesse chowin down on a waffle sandwhich thing haha
Sarah C got a tandem and Jake brought it out that night, so she could ride the last day. I spent some time getting seats and pedals switched onto it, and we were all really excited that she was going to be able to ride into Cannon Beach the next day. Hill-master Marky Mark was going to be on the front of the Tandem pulling up the hills, and it turned out to be a very good thing, he actually got tired!
Maple bacon bar! (at voodoo)
I slept again the hammock which was excellent, I love being creative finding places to hang it. We were so close to being done, I didn’t even sleep that well I was so excited and was ready to go in the morning. I thought I took a picture of my hammock job, can’t find any of the campsite though, oh well haha.
Building in Portland
Jul 29th
An excellent build day, we were all put to work and got a lot done! We got shuttled to the build site, which was closer to the city, and then shuttled back for showers, and shuttled downtown for dinner at a brewery arranged by an alum, Sarah, and her roommate who coordinated our build with Habitat.
Hab-e-tat (Kristen's michigan accent haha)
My group consisted of Joe, Zach, Jesse B and myself. A power build team if there ever was one, so we thought. We were putting up the siding, which was pain-in-the-@$$ off-brand “hardy board.” It didn’t cut well, and we had to try quite a few times to make some pieces that fit around stuff. By lunch, we had hung a net of 0 boards haha, as we had to take down two from the day before, but we had the hang of it by then and made some real progress by day’s end. Lots of pictures actually!
Dave with the kitten
And Sarah G
Kitten!
Christina
is
a
model
The roofs before we began
Jen loves her coffee haha...it's gross
He's also ready for a day of building!
Zach hammerin nails
Look at the concentration by Joe
Jesse must've got the short straw, he pick axed the hard ground all day haha
Noah's building at home
Caroline model shot haha
Marky Mark, he got a sweet tool belt somewhere
Finished roof!
It was a long day for the dog too haha
And here is my group’s work:
Start
Finish
The dinner was at Green Dragon Brewery, and I got have two excellent local beers, an amber and a stout. They had door prizes, and as I was leaving I snagged a t-shirt haha. I caught a ride and navigated with Debbie, Jen’s Mom up to Alberta Street where there was this HUGE street fair goin on. It’s called Last Thursday, and the last thursday of every month people come out to sell homemade stuff, play really awesome music all over the place, make food, and hang out. It was about 20 blocks long, and the streets were full of people for every one of those! At the end of the night I got a ride back in the B&B van so I didn’t have to take the bus. The concentration of hipsters was crazy, soooo many bikes and bike art and fixies…and I felt like I fit right in with the mohawk haha.
Over Mt. Hood to Portland!
Jul 28th
Joe enjoying the hammock in Gresham that night
Mt. Hood! We came pretty close to it
That title is actually quite misleading though, as the pass over Hood was dissappointly easy and I have yet to be in Portland, we’re staying in the suburb of Gresham. The ride was great up next to the mountain, and coming way back down to good ol sea level. Dinner was miraculous, with ice cream and apple juice, can’t beat that! A special thanks to Noah’s parents for supplying the chocolate cake and fruit salad as well.
I started the morning with a slow packing of my bin, since I had taken it all apart to organize and clean. Sleeping the night in the hammock (picture of that setup from last post) worked great, and it packs up in 2 minutes, quicker than rolling and deflating the thermarest! Our awesome awesome hosts in Maupin had a wonderful spread of breakfast for us, and I ate lotsss for what had been hyped to be a challenging day. I filled my camelbak for the first time in awhile, and am glad I did.
After our route meeting, and 20 seconds of dancing to no music that I time every morning, and our chant to Paige, I took off with Mark and Dave. Jesse forwent riding with Alyson and was looking to ride fast for the first time in weeks, so he caught up with us. On the climb out of the valley, we lost Dave unfortunately to a mechanical I think, and passed just about the whole group up the climb. Its fun to start at the back and be able to feel the progress passing people haha. If the trip lasted another few months though…who knows and I might be the one getting passed, the improvement of other riders has been awesome to watch.
After getting out of the valley it was pretty much flat as we approached the foothills. Into the pine forest and we went up, gradually for a little while. All the time we were wondering when the climb would start. To our suprise, we saw a sign desisnating that we had ascending a pass of 4000ft…I didn’t notice that much uphill. And then we went down, and lunch was early at 37 miles. Zach had missed lunch so Mark and I went after him with a bunch of food, but after only a little bit more climbing…we went back down. Signs for a 5 mile downgrade of 6% and the fact we were right at the side of the mtn meant we were done climbing, and that was anticlimatic. But the descent was awwwesome, we went down forever!
I thought we’d went down below sea level haha so was suprised to see we were still at 1500ft, and we kept going down. Eventually we made it to Sandy, and made a stop at the very famous Joe’s Donuts. Two of the best glazed donuts I’ve ever had melted in my mouth and I got a root beer float for $1!
It was rolling from there, and it must be the low elevation cuz we pretty easily cruised, without tailwind, at 24mph up and down the hills all the way here.
At our host in Gresham, we got spoiled again with lots of great food, soda and such when we got here. And yeah dinner was good, and now were gonna go out in Gresham. I’m on a hot streak with hammock, check out todays spot haha. (I think the pictures go at the top from the phone though).
Thanks for reading, tomorrow we got to Portland proper to build and brewery!