10.02.2009

Homeless in Portland! (possible knock off movie of Sleepless in Seattle?)

life is good on the streets....

We made it to Portland Tuesday night! Actually, the last 3 days of riding ended in darkness. Being so close, we wanted to get as far as we could. Sunday we had an incredibly rare tailwind coming from the east! We made it about 110 miles that day, but woke up tired and with an even stronger headwind the next. Worst headwind of the trip! It took us probably 9 hours to make it the 60 miles to Hood River...painfully slow. I have a friend that lives in Hood River, but forgot to save his number. That woulda been nice. We ended up getting pizza and beer and staying at another hotel. (it rained that night so im glad we did) The next day it rained ALL day...and we got flat after flat. I think we spent 2 hours changing flats. As miserable as the day was, we tried to just laugh it off. And the ride really was gorgeous once we got on the historic highway.

We've been staying in the White Eagle Hotel the last couple nights, which is a really swanky place. There's live music everynight right under our bedroom! The hotel/bar is on N Russell street, but we couldn't find it right away. Looking at the bike map of the city, I mistook Russet street for Russell....the 't' really looked like an 'l' I swear! There also just happened to be a bar called the Eagle in about the place The White Eagle on Russell would be. So, assuming that we were on Russell, this had to be it! I walked in and told the bar tender we had reservations for tonight. He looked at me with a blank stare..."Uhh, excuse me? I have no clue what your talking about. We don't have rooms here" Hmm, had we just been scammed?! How can this not be it? I take a moment, look around...there's tv's all around the bar showing gay porn. OOPS! awkwardly thank the bartender and head for the door. I look at Anona..."This isn't it!"
We did finally make it to the real place, which was just a block away from where we were looking in the first place.

Today we rode to downtown and Anona had a meeting with the coach of a local team. We also stopped by Voodoo Doughnuts (the hippest doughnut shop ever). While eating our oreo topped vegan doughnuts, one of the employees started chatting with us and mentioned he had a room in his house that his roommate is trying to sublet. $250 for the month of October! Think we might have to take him up on it. We'll check it out this afternoon, and if the realtor doesn't call us back today I think we'll just stay there. We can't wait to be able to drop all our gear off and not have to haul it everywhere. Also can't wait to start some cross racin! Today, while waiting for Anona to get done with her meeting I saw a bike messenger that was in Cog Magazine! (Erin) He's some kind of courier idol around here...legs like Mario Cippollini. I couldn't help staring.

More updates coming soon! We'll try to keep going with the blog for a while at least. Hopefully we'll have a place soon so we can spend a little more time writing. Come visit soon!

5 comments:

  1. Great story of adventure and a job well done. I'll be checking Portland area cross results. Ciao, Chris.

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  2. Hoo yah! Landed safely and a place to roost while you figure out the details. Woot!

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  3. Congrats on making it! Reading your updates about your trip made a cross country trek sound pretty appealing. It was great to read about all the bike-friendly people you encountered. Best of luck getting set up and situated in Oregon. Well done! :)

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  4. "He's some kind of courier idol around here...legs like Mario Cippollini. I couldn't help staring."

    Hey Dan, are you sure you weren't in the right place with the gay porn. ;-)

    Glad you made it! Have fun with the 'cross racin', but don't forget about the whole jobs thing.

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