My Bicycle Journey: Blog 14

July 7

Really the only thing I had to do today was clean my bike's chain and loaf around. Cleaning my chain was a bit iffy, as I wasn't sure how my utilitarian methods

would go over with Portland's population if observed. Step one was to discreetly root around in some trash cans and obtain an assortment of plastic (NOT styrofoam) bottles. Next, I borrowed a gas can from some random dude and procured a quart of petrol. With all the supplies in order, I sacrificed my old toothbrush and proceeded to scrub all kinds of crud out of my drivetrain.

This pretty much took up the morning, and I aimlessly did nothing until 3:00 or so. Jerking myself out of the stupor and vague irritation that seems to descend whenever I have no purpose for more than 4 hours, I jumped on my bike and wandered around Portland, eventually ending up at the art museum, which happened to have a big exhibit of bicycles. Of course, this was of extreme ingest to me, and begrudgingly parted with $12 to gain access to the collection. I walked through an arched doorway into what was probably one of the most wonderful rooms I've ever been in. Scores of bicycles were suspended from the ceiling, and I was swept away in the tidal wave of mechanical awesomeness. Just about every kind of bike you can imagine was represented, from weird side by side tandems to Lotus time trial bikes. I of course, gravitated to the race bikes. I admired every detail, from handmade carbon fiber wheelsets to expensive derailers. These bicycles truly were art, but they were also far more than that. Each and every one of them was built for a specific purpose, and all of them looked like they worked so well. I've got this thing for quality stuff that does what it is supposed to do to perfection. Each of these machines looked so uncompromising, so purpose built, that all I wanted to do was get on each one and let it speak to me. I have no doubt that if I had had the chance to ride any of these bikes, my awe and respect for them would do nothing but grow.

Machines like this somehow become more than the sum of their components. Sure, any of the individual bikes may have been composed of carbon fiber, epoxy, aluminum alloy, titanium, steel cable, or any other number of elements. But in their whole, they had a soul. Some person, some person who really cared, had put all his or her effort into sculpting those components into a creation that reflected their own personality. In today's world of mass produced products, you have no idea how much I appreciated seeing something that was obviously built with so much care. I think this is the primary reason I like apple computers and devices so much. When I hold a Dell laptop or Samsung phone, there is no beauty in it. Corse plastics, buttons that click mushily, and stickers are revolting to me, because they speak of people who aren't passionate about what they do. I am surrounded by a world obsessed with consumerism that doesn't pay attention to refinement, and the Portland Art Museum's cyclopedia display was a gust of fresh air, a comforting reminder that craftsmanship does, or at least did exist.

I also toured as much of the museum as I could before it closed, and got to see works by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet.

That evening, I also had some more excitement. I'd been getting to know Audie, and had enjoyed hearing her ideas about the world, which were very different than my own. Contrary to creating resentment, I appreciated how strongly she held her beliefs. If Christians would put even half as much thought into their faith as she had out into hers, the church in America wouldn't be in such a bad state. Anyway, I decided to breach the dam and share my viewpoints with her. Little did I know what the conversation to follow would be like. I think Audie may have had some resentment going due to events in the past, and she pulled every difficult question in the book, from the problem of evil to the patriarchal philosophy of the bible. Each question was charged with emotion, and I did my best to answer them. The conversation, sometimes crossing over into debate, raged on into the night, and left me mentally and physically exhausted. I'm not prepared to say that I won the argument, or even did a good job of it, but my hope is that my actions and the way I carried myself during my stay planted a seed and changed Audie's view of Christianity. It also highlighted the importance of education to Christians. True, christianity is a relationship, but beyond that it a philosophy that explains the fundamental questions of mankind and the reasons of the earth. Anybody who calls themselves a christian needs, I repeat, needs to strive to understand why they believe what they believe and be ready to offer some basic explanations to skeptics.

June 8

You are probably thinking, "what happened to Danny?" Well, Danny and I came to sort of a mutual understanding that we really would probably both more happy if we parted ways. So it was solo, once again, that I headed out of Portland. On the way out, I stopped at a DMV in an attempt to secure a state map. They didn't have one. I'd even called ahead and been assured that the location I visited did, in fact, have state maps. Remember how I dislike stuff that doesn't work they way I think it should? The US government falls squarely into that category.

I had found warmshowers hosts in both Salem and Eugene who were willing to host me, and the cities were perfectly spaced for two easy day's rides. My first stop was Salem, were I was staying with Dave and Sharon, a retired couple. I had a pleasant ride, although there were sections where the traffic was a bit heavy. Little did I know the the hosts waiting for me were probably the best I'd had the whole trip. As soon as I pulled into the driveway, I received a hug and was asked if I was ready for some good old fashioned parenting, and things pretty much went uphill from there. After a fabulous dinner, Dave showed me some of his cycling records, which he recorded with a GPS and showed everything from temperature to elevation. He had kept track of every ride he'd taken for like the last 5 years, and I had fun seeing how meticulously he kept track of everything.

June 9

In the morning, Dave and I enjoyed another excellent meal, and we reluctantly said goodby. My destination for today was Eugene, and a tailwind wafted me down the Willamet Valley.

I was staying with a family of 6, and I soon learned that they were unfairly gifted athletes. When I arrived, the father, Paul and I sat out on the front porch with some lemonade and shared stories. Paul asked "so, how far do you usually go in a day?" I told him, "oh, maybe 70 miles or so". He looked at me for a second, and then told me how far he and a group of 2 friends averaged per day when they had crossed the country. I almost didn't believe him. "When I rode across" he said, "we averaged 160 miles per day" keep in mind, the furthest I've ever gone on a bike in one day is 120 miles. Ya, the guy was super hardcore.

There was some sort of event going on in a nearby park, and I decided to go check it out. It turned out to be some sort of revival meeting; here's what I wrote while watching it.

Okay, so currently I'm checking out a revival being put on by the "Cowboy Church of Oregon" that's taking place in a close by park. To get to the point, I am disgusted. The entire thing is based solely on emotion, with lots of references to "drug addicts" and "being set free", with piano music playing softly in the background. Some dude is yelling at the top of his lungs into a microphone, another bald guy in a leather jacket is dancing in the grass. The spectators are a show of their own. From soccer moms to homeless people, they are scattered about, and their reactions are just as diverse as their appearance. One guy, who I think may have been wearing a bra, got all worked up and started yelling and shaking his fist aggressively. Security quickly descended and silenced him, probably for fear that he would raise a legitimate question that the preach wouldn't be able to answer. If I was a non-Christian and saw something like this, do you know what it would make me think? Actually, you probably don't. If I met somebody who believed Christianity in the manner that I'm guessing many of these people do, I think I would play the antagonist and argue from the standpoint of an atheist, and see what kind of responses they could come up with.

Chances are, many of you know me well enough to know that I could insert some artfully crafted disclaimer about how they probably have good motives and stuff, so I'm not going to bother.

Ha! I have successfully memorized pi out to the number of digits my iPod displays it to (15). Just incase any of you were wondering, it happens to be 3.141592653589793

I apparently also wrote about memorizing more useless facts. Anyway, I actually was later accosted by some lady wandering around looking for people to chat up about Jesus, and pretended to be an atheist. She pretty much met my expectations, continually steering the conversation from answers that made sense to things like "you know, you should really visit the prayer tent. Those people are amazing, I think they could really help you." I later broke the news that I wasn't really an atheist, and answered some of the questions she had struggled to answer.

After a bowl of soup graciously offered to me by the Atkinson's, I fell asleep in the yard under my tarp.

July 10

I had been hearing about what a neat town Eugene was, and had decided to spend an extra day there. I'm afraid that the most prominent thing I noticed in Eugene was the homeless people. They were everywhere, in the parks, on the streets, on the sidewalks. It did not make Eugene feel like a nice place.

I visited the library, and later got some cold brewed coffee. I'd been hearing that the best way to brew iced coffee was to steep the grounds in cold water for like 10 hours, and everybody talked about how good it was. I did enjoy it, and will probably have to figure out how to make it my self someday.

I'd heard that the revival people were serving dinner, and snagged myself 3 sloppy joes plus some assorted pastries. Scarcely an hour later, I accepted an offer to visit a new restaurant with the Atkins', and had another 3 slices of deep dish pizza.

The restaurant was close by, so the entire family walked. On the way back, we were discussing what would be my best route to the coast, and Paul said, "we should make a stop and talk to Brad." He also added, "oh, by the way, Brad likes to talk." Brad turned out be a a guy in his 50's with longer hair, arched eyebrows, and a weak chin. He was also cycling obsessed, and a flaming liberal. He talked nonstop for a solid hour and a half, but I emerged from his house, gasping, with a detailed route.

July 11

It looked to be a 90 mile ride, so I started out as early as I could. Brad had warned me that it was very rural, explaining "40 years or so ago, when the government had more money than they knew what to do with, they paved a bunch of dirt roads that really didn't need to paved." Within 20 miles, I had switched from riding through sparsely populated areas to dense forestland. The road grew narrow, maybe a lane and a half, and traffic dropped to a car every half hour or so. The scenery made up for the lack of water stops however, and I was glad I had endured the one sided conversation the night before. I also made a discovery about my bike.

Most people don't have relationships with inanimate mechanical objects. I, not being most people, do. My Schwinn, for example, is pretty much one of my friends, not just a bicycle. My touring bike on the other hand had mostly failed to elicit any feelings. As a bicycle, it does it's job, and works reasonably well, but has no personality. In essence, I really didn't seem to have fun when riding it. That all changed when I discovered 15mph downhill hairpins. While all the weight I was carrying seemed to suck the playfulness out of the bike most of the time, it actually made descending sharp corners at unsafe speeds quite fun. All the weight, especially up front, helped to make the bike very stable, and gave me the confidence to lean way too far into corners without fear of sliding off the road. When I'm in my car, I usually pay attention to the recommended corner speeds, but figure that they need to be doubled to be meaningful. Unfortunately, Michigan doesn't have any road that let me test out the x2 rule on bicycle. As I discovered, it does work pretty well. Those 15 mile an hour corners? Try 30ish. Needles to say, it was enormously fun, and I almost had to pull off the road after a particularly tight stretch to allow my adrenaline fueled shakes to calm down.

With a quick McDonalds stop in the city of Reedsport as soon as I emerged from the wilderness, I made it to Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, which had one of the government's few gifts to humanity, hiker/biker campsites. For a mere $5, people powered travelers can enjoy all the amenities of a legit campground. After a hot shower, I relaxed in the comfort of my hammock.