August 2, 2021
Day 82 - Astoria, OR to Columbia city, OR
Pilgrimage to Portland
Today we slept as long as possible, which means 8 am, before we got up and got ready. We packed, had oatmeal, and brought our stuff down 3 flights and got our bikes from down beside the basement.
Alex, Mary and I rode down the hill to a pastry and coffee shop beside for George brewing to have a coffee and a little more food. We sat around for a few minutes talking about plans for the day. Alex was crossing the old green bridge our of Astoria and into Washington, his 48th state. We were heading east (with the wind!) to Portland. Mary said we could ride the bus for $15, but I have to finish my liberal pilgrimage by bike. This pilgrimage to Portland must be done at least once. In Portland, I imagine that liberals do things like eat vegan foods, go to bike shops, and commiserate with other liberals. Anyway, more on socialism later.
We said a teary goodbye to Alex and parted ways. Mary and I stopped at the Safeway to grabs lunch stuff. We were about a mile out of town and I had forgotten to get Astoria post cards! I was going to send them to people who had hosted us along the way but I figured I would have to ride back into town. Luckily they stocked them at the Safeway and I bought 17. We carried on down the bike path out of town when an older couple on foot flagged us down. They said, "transam or pacific coast?", so we knew we had to stop. It turns out that it was mark and pat, two people from the what's app group chat that we had never met. It was fun to hear their stories of hanging out with Mallory, jins and Shelly, and Connor, David, and Tim (CDT for short). It was so weird that we hadn't run into them out there, but also so weird that we saw them here! We talked for at least half an hour and set off east bound again. At this point it was about 11 and we had to ride 60 miles. I had contacted a warm showers host in Columbia city, about 30 miles outside of Portland, and I told them we should arrive around 6 pm. We had a bunch of sizeable hills to climb (about 800' each), but the wind was at our backs all day. We just rode hey 30 all the way, which was busy and loud, but at least there was a shoulder most of the time. We stopped for lunch at a lookout over the Columbia river and talked to another cyclist doing a short round trip around Oregon.
He said he had ridden all around the us when he was younger and that the south east wasn't actually that bad. Maybe I'll have to give it a go, because I just assumed you would be run down in that area. We finished up and carried on, stopping once at a grocery store to get food for dinner. The wind picked up as we got into the late afternoon and around 6 we were going 18 mph up a 1-2% grade. Finally, after headwind or no wind 98% of our trip, this is well deserved. It's gods hand pushing us towards our home, Portland. We got to Columbia city and rode up a steep hill to our hosts house where they immediately opened the garage door to let us in. I had just asked to sleep in their yard since my request was so last minute, bit they made some food for us, had a bed and shower, and indoor bike storage. The hosts, Richard and Elizabeth, were really cool and bike enthusiasts. Richard usually commutes to Portland on bike each day and puts 3k miles on it a year! We chatted for a little while before getting ready for bed at 9. We were also super stoked to be in air conditioning!
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Mileage:66
Altitude gain:3200
So, we have friends from Massachusetts visiting us in Savannah at the end of August. They are flying to Myrtle beach so we figured we would just stay out west until the 25th of Aug and pick them up from myrtle on our way down from north Carolina (where my dad lives, he is picking us up from the RDU airport). Since we have some time, we are going to Portland and then eventually making our way to Seattle to visit other friends that we met in Massachusetts. It's the bonus bike tour.
Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 4,319 miles (6,951 km)
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