Oregon: The End of a Journey

Leaving the Pastor and his wife was as difficult as leaving my brother in South Dakota but I knew I was hitting the home stretch of the trip as we would be in Oregon by the end of the day. The wind slowed us down fairly quickly and we hadn't put many miles in for the day before we decided to take lunch in the town of Caldwell, ID at a small restaurant called TNT's Dynamite Grill...Alright so I'm a big fan of AC/DC but even I was a little taken a back by the corny name of this place, but Jared wanted to try it so I decided to give it a whirl. When we walked in I fell in love. It's the perfect kind of little diner that I had grown to always long for in each town and it featured a counter top with bar stools which always gets a place bonus points in my eyes. We had a nice lunch and decided to splurge on a hand spun milkshake (always a good idea). I think what really did us in was the great conversation we were enjoying.

Alright, brief aside rant...McDonald's is a great place, I'll just say it. Along the way McDonald's provided a chance to wash up in a bathroom, charge phones, fill up water bottles with ice water, get a lot of calories for cheap, and drink as many refills on soft drinks as we wanted. We needed places like this along the way, but the diners were truly some of the best times we had.

We chatted with the old men sitting there next to us who come in every day and with the twin sisters who owned the place, and it was worth every penny. What was even better was that they didn't make us pay a single red cent! Now this wasn't the first time we had been treated to a free meal at a restaurant as back in the town of Marshall, MN and a coffee shop in Redwood Falls, MN. Still this place was a huge blessing to us because of the heart of the givers. They said that if pastors could give us a free place to stay that they could at least give us a meal. It was particularly warming to us because these were foul mouthed women who on more than one occasion expressed regret for saying things that they thought would offend us. I kept wondering how many people in the church have given these women the impression that they need to become perfect before they can set foot in a sanctuary because here they were feeling sorry in their own place where we were outsiders. I couldn't help but wish we could have made a greater impact in their lives to help heal some of the wounds that the church may have inflicted on them.

It was probably the first time that I was sad to leave a restaurant that wasn't an all-you-can-eat buffet, but we had a state border to cross and one more to push through ahead of us.

The border crossing into Oregon was one of the least ceremonial crossings of the trip as there was no state sign to take a picture with and upon entering the state we were not greeted by an absurd number of good coffee shops, hippies, or even a bike lane. We're in Oregon aren't we? This feels just like Idaho. The roads are lined with irrigation troughs that make use of aluminum tubes to spill out into the onion fields, but this was nothing new. Where is the rainforest that I envisioned this state being? We had a long way to go until we reached the stereotype I guess.

Our first night was spent in Vale, OR, a small town with not much there but they had all we needed, a Nazarene church willing to let us sleep inside and a diner. The church was pretty old but we were given the basement to sleep in with the added bonus of having "beds". Jared slept on a couch and I found a padded medical table in their youth room to be pretty comfortable. The youth room was like a picture of the 80's and 90's with posters for Ray Boltz and newcomer Steven Curtis Chapman. It also had a bumper sticker posted that said something to the affect of a condom being able to protect you from HIV, but not from Hell. It shouldn't surprise you that I decided to take care of this terrible message for them by confiscating the sticker.

We struck luck in Vale a second time when the pastor's wife told us that she owned the diner at the other side of town and that we could get whatever we wanted for free for breakfast. I'm not usually one to take full advantage of someone's hospitality but I decided that this was the perfect time to try the most expensive item on the menu so I ordered the ribeye and eggs. It was decent, but at the price of $0 you couldn't beat it.

Oregon in a nutshell is a lot more dry than I expected it to be. It also was surprisingly hilly as we climbed massive hills with no relief from the sun's harsh heat rays. Each drop of sweat that trickled into my eyes helped me push through as I was developing a love hate relationship with this state that was supposed to be so magnificent. In the town of Mitchell we went down to the only restaurant that was open and got to talk with some locals but aside from that I wasn't really enjoying this place all that much.

But then we hit the "town" of Ironside. I don't mean to make fun of Ironside because it was a great place, but in reality this was only several ranches that happened to be in the same area so calling it a town wouldn't be an accurate description. This was the kind of place that we would have never thought about stopping in because there were no businesses or anywhere we would think we could sleep, but as I was kneeling down on the side of the road working on my wheel because it was developing a wobble, a woman named Liz pulled up in a big pickup truck. She had driven past me and told Jared to wait for me because I was working on the bike and was coming back to check on me to see if I was alright. Then she went ahead of me to tell Jared to wait up and that I would be there shortly, but what I didn't know was that she was going to offer to let us stay with her and her husband at their ranch where they had a bunk house we could use.

Any guy in our riding group knows what I decided on in this case. Let's see, go further to a town where we won't have a house or stop short and be inside. Some people would want to get the miles but I'm not some people as each mile is never easy for me.

Fortunately Liz and Bob were a joy to spend time with. Liz is a horse veterinarian in Boise, ID and her husband Bob is a rancher who specializes in sheep, which he learned how to raise while growing up in New Zealand. They offered to have us in for dinner with them and while they prepared it we got to settle in to their bunk house which was more like a guest house than anything. I was half expecting to walk into a shack with a bunch of bunk beds where they housed migrant Mexican workers, but we were treated to our own beds made out of logs, a shower, and bear skin rugs. This was pretty swanky by our standards, and so was dinner. Liz made grilled chicken breasts, salad, and red skinned potatoes (or as Bob called them, spuds) that were picked from their garden right before dinner. After a night of great conversation we took them up on their offer to help ourselves to their hot tub which we sat in until well after 1am which is not late for me most of the time, but considering we were asleep before 10pm most nights on this trip it was really late. Still we enjoyed the relaxation and time to discuss important life matters like girls and what the world would be like if we didn't have to wear clothes.

The next morning we woke up to a nice breakfast with our new favorite couple before they had to head off to work. As the trip progressed I was starting to find it difficult to say goodbye to people we met more often.

After about a mile I got a flat tire which was awesome because Jared and I were running out of tubes again. We thought all of Oregon would have bike shops every five miles, but Oregon was more cowboy country than a hippy culture. We fixed the tire and pushed on...and up. Yeah there were a lot of hills on this day as Oregon quickly became a place of constant mountain passes. I'm not exaggerating about this as there were more mountain passes in Oregon than any other state save for Pennsylvania, but you can't really call those hills passes. Fortunately we were starting to see some trees. They were only aspens so the land was still dry, but it was some relief from the heat.

I still wasn't satisfied with this state, but then I came up over a pass leading into Prairie City and I finally realized why people would risk dysentery to get through this state (we had been riding on the Oregon Trail for a long time so it was always a fear that I would get it or have to wade through a river). It was perhaps the most fun downhill I had experienced up to this point of the trip as it was steep and yet still lasted a long time. This was also the first time we saw some snow capped mountains since leaving Wyoming so we knew we were getting into some less dry areas.

Prairie City was also a cool place for us because we met our first real Oregonian. I of course mean the generalization of an Oregonian that I had coming in to this trip which is someone who cares about the environment and rides a bicycle. Jim was an awesome guy and after sitting down for dinner at a local restaurant we decided to take him up on his offer to let us camp in his yard. After a short ride uphill to his home we set up camp and got to chat with him and his wife Karen about cycling. Turns out they are hoping to one day do a ride where they hit as many baseball games along the way as possible. This resonated with me enough to have a moment of regret for not thinking of the idea myself, but it was nice to talk with another friendly couple for the second night in a row. Oregon was quickly starting to challenge Minnesota for nicest state all trip, but this would be put to the test later on as we would witness road rage several times.

The next few days were spent riding through dry conditions that we had come to expect and we thought there might never be any relief from this climate. Then we hit Prineville, a town not far from the Cascades. While in Prineville we camped at the Nazarene church and decided to catch a movie at their local theater. Of course they weren't showing Captain America but Jared was desperate enough to want to see Cowboys and Aliens. I decided to not join him and find something better to do. Five minutes later, after having ridden around the town I came back to the theater because there was actually nothing better to do. Sadly the movie was every bit as bad as rottentomatoes.com had warned me, and even worse if you ask me. I had nightmares about how awful it was all night.

The next day we were setting our eyes on a short day to the town of Sisters. It wasn't going to be a hard day by any stretch of the imagination save for a few short and steep hills so we decided to stop in the town of Redmond at a coffee shop called the Green Plow. It was there that I had my first satisfactory Oregonian quality espresso which shouldn't have surprised me because they were roasters as well.

Jared decided to head on to Wal-Mart and I chose to push on to Sisters ahead of him so that we might make it to the town at the same time for a change. I actually ended up getting in about an hour before him because he left his Klean Kanteen at the coffee shop and had to double back to get it. I was glad for the opportunity to finally enjoy discovering a town first. This seems petty I'm sure, but when you get to a town first you get to be the one with the inside information when the other arrives. I had grown tired of always getting in to town and hearing about everything they had as soon as I arrived so on this rare occasion I made sure to get the full lay of the land so I could tell Jared all about it.

Sisters is one of those places I would like to own a home in one day. It's nestled right at the base of the Cascade range in a small touristy town. It felt a little like DuBois, WY in many ways but a bit more charming. After taking information for a $1.5 million home that was for sale I checked out all the town had to offer and recommended a Mexican restaurant to Jared when he got in.

The town of Sisters was a bit like DuBois in that we had no idea where we would sleep that night, but fortunately there was a national forest surrounding the town so we knew we were legally allowed to camp anywhere we wanted outside of town. We found a nice spot on a bed of pine needles and fell asleep in quiet which turned out be a blessing in disguise. The next morning we would have to climb our last major pass of the trip after breakfast.

That last climb would be McKenzie Pass which would prove to be relatively difficult. It started off very gradual for several miles and along the way we passed a young couple who were doing pretty much the same ride as us so we were feeling pretty confident in our abilities. Then a man who was riding a lightweight road bike came up to talk with us right before the hill became steep. Of course this meant that I would either fall way behind him and Jared or I would have to overexert myself. I chose the latter for pride's sake and was quickly winded and sucking down all of the water in my Camelbak. This concerned me a bit because we knew that on this particular day we would be pushing from Sisters to Springfield which was a long haul. We were told by Carson that there would be a nice long downhill for 20 some miles after the climb so that was encouraging, but in the back of my mind I questioned if this would actually be 20 miles or if there would be more climbs after. I was doubting whether we would make it all the way or not.

When we got to the top of the pass we met a man who was interested in our ride and as gesture of good will he gave us each an 8gb SD memory card which will probably last me the rest of my life so it was a pretty good day. The lookout tower at the top of the pass was made from lava rock which I thought was pretty cool and you could see Mount Hood way off in the distance so we knew we were somewhat close to being done.

As we started out down the hill we were quickly greeted by uphill stretches which was making me question my friendship with Carson. After about a half a mile we reached a point where the terrain seemed to be leveling off and I thought to myself, "man, what was Carson smoking that made him exaggerate the distance of the downhill that much?" Fortunately the level terrain was merely the distance across the length of the mountain range and we came to a point when we would get to go back down. For almost 25 miles we sped down switchback after switchback which was quite dangerous because it meant we were literally zig zagging down the mountain, going around sharp bank turns relatively fast despite squeezing our brakes as hard as possible. Along the way there were signs indicating the elevation every 100 feet you dropped and it amazed us how long it was taking us to drop so far.

After all that downhill we decided to stop for lunch at a restaurant where we ate overpriced burgers, but we didn't care because we were finally on the other side of the mountains and it finally felt like the lush Oregon we thought we would find. For the rest of the day we pushed pretty hard to make it to Springfield, a bustling suburb just out of Eugene. On the way we were treated to a ride along the river beneath shady trees with waterfalls lining the road. It was magical, very reminiscent of the Delaware Water Gap when we first entered Pennsylvania. I was thrilled, but the realist in me couldn't help but vocalize a bit of disappointment because after riding all the way to Oregon we were experiencing beauty, but it was all to similar to the beauty we experienced in the first week of the trip. Why hadn't we just stopped and rode all over Pennsylvania? I guess the payoff really isn't found in the beauty one gets to experience at either ends of the country on a ride like this, it's seeing that there is beauty in many forms all the way across (except South Dakota and Wyoming).

When we reached Springfield we were a little surprised to find that it was a bit on the city side, heavily populated and built up. It had the feel of an Illinois or New Jersey suburb in some ways, but that may have only been my perception as a result of having spent over a month in scarcely populated places from the time we left Rochester until now. Still Springfield was a place I was very happy to find myself in. I knew that just a week prior to our arrival at the Nazarene church Carson had spoken during their service after having completed his ride into the ocean so we knew were right on the doorstep of completion. After eating a dinner prepared for us by the church, we set up our tent on the lawn and drifted off to sleep, knowing full well that we only had tomorrow ahead of us.

What I didn't count on was that the distance from Springfield to Florence was still relatively significant. The church invited us inside for a shower and breakfast and prayed with us before we set off on our last daily journey. It didn't take us long to reach the city of Eugene which is large by all accounts and reminded me of how much I had come to loathe riding in cities despite their network of bicycle routes (they did us little good because we were unaware of how to navigate them). We made quick work of the place after a short ride to the Oregon football stadium where we took a series of pictures of us doing the O-H-I-O to demonstrate our lack of respect for their team as proud Buckeye fans. A brief stop at McDonald's allowed us to charge up our calories for the rest of the ride to the coast.

From Eugene to Florence I can't say I particularly enjoyed the ride. There were nice stretches leading into the coastal range but there was also so much more traffic than we were now used to. As we came upon a small town along the way I mentioned to Jared how much I wished there was a Dairy Queen somewhere up ahead. Not more than a minute and a half later we came to one. It was eerie and coincidental but we had to stop because it seemed like a divine appointment.

After our ice cream break it was nothing but riding. The coastal range had one more pass which was really just a short steep hill, reminiscent of any hill early in our trip, but the rest of the day was hilly nonetheless with long gradual inclines that we had to grind through. As we reached the last small town before Florence things got better with encouraging symbols of hope; a river on one side of us and railroad tracks on the other. Rivers are usually a sign of things being flat. This is not always the case as sometimes the road goes up and down drastically along the river (Snake River entering into Idaho was this way or Delaware Water Gap). Railroads however, are always at a gradual incline and this was the most encouraging part. The road along the river was almost completely level, but now in lieu of an absence of hills, the mind became my greatest obstacle, and a mountain at that.

I had tackled mountains along this trip that were far more physically strenuous than this last flat stretch of pavement. I had taken on some of the most boring stretches of land I have ever seen in Wyoming and South Dakota, and yet this last stretch of level pavement along a beautiful river with lush trees and mountains on each side was the most difficult mental test all trip. My greatest weakness was being aware of how much further I had left to go. Every ounce of my being wanted to take the foot off the accelerator and coast into the ocean on fumes. It's like running a race and seeing the finish line. You want to sprint and know you should, but your mind and body want you to just stop short of it instead of sprinting straight through it. For two months I had worked hard, earned spectacular views and experiences with pools of sweat (and in some cases blood). The bottom line is that I wanted to have things the easy way for just these last 15 miles. I rationalized it in my mind, "Matt, you only have 15 miles to go. That's how many miles it was to ride from school and around Lake Hefner and back. You've done that a hundred times without a problem." Yet each pedal stroke felt like I had never ridden a bike before. We reached 10 miles from Florence, "Matt, this is only a ride around Lake Overholser, a walk in the park." I wanted to trick my mind into thinking that the remaining miles were nothing, but while 10 or 15 miles was just a drop in the bucket compared to how many miles I had come, my legs had miles of wear and tear on them and my will to fight was not equaled by my body's strength.

As each mile slowly passed I started to have to stop more frequently to let the blood back into my legs, the oxygen back into my lungs, and most importantly, the feeling back in my butt. Fortunately Jared was willing to stick with me as on this day he had decided it was important that we both get to finish together and the road afforded us a generous enough shoulder that we were able to ride side by side the remaining miles, but just as friends despite what Jared may have hoped.

We were closing in on the town of Florence and were within just a few miles. That morning we got an early start because we had hoped to arrive at the beach during daylight for the best pictures possible. The trip wasn't really all about finishing and getting to the ocean, but I would be lying if I said that I hadn't day dreamed about the glorious moment of riding up over a ridge and seeing the ocean out in front of us. That moment had been playing in my mind ever since the first day when we left New York, and as much as I tried to keep it out of my head so I could focus on the present, not a day went by that I didn't think about it...

Unfortunately the moment that I had hoped for was not to be, and yet I was too tired to be upset. We would make the coast, but as we rode up the river we saw a thick layer of fog that seemed to be growing at a rapid pace. There would be no outrunning this fog as it had already overtaken the landscape in an eerie fashion. As we reached the town of Florence we could barely see the town limit sign just a few feet in front of us, and upon reaching the town we discovered that we would need to ride three more miles north to reach a beach access since there are sand dunes in the way when you first reach the town. Three miles felt like a hundred at this point. My mental wherewithal was all but dried up and were I not so tired I may have tried to climb over the sand dunes to reach the ocean without riding those extra miles, but sadly I knew we couldn't stop. There was the brief thought of just sleeping and riding those miles the next morning to the ocean when it would be clear out, but after two months of anticipation we were ready to bring about the conclusion of this adventure and wouldn't have been able to sleep had we tried putting it off until the next morning.

After riding those few miles we found ourselves winding through what appeared to be ocean front homes. They reminded me of the homes in Huntington Beach, California, the town that Jared and I went to every year for spring break. We hadn't been able to this year because with the trip approaching we realized that working that extra week might be the smarter thing to do. I'm glad we made the decision we did because now it had paid off. We were enjoying a coastal experience now with extravagant homes. The only differences were that it was really cold (my nose was running and I wanted a winter coat) and instead of palm trees there were evergreen trees on the properties.

Then we reached sand. In the moment our brains stopped working and as a result we decided to drag our bikes through the sand until we hit water. As we approached the shallow water washing over ice cold sand we began to frolic.

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There was no better word for it! I'm sorry, what do you want from me? I'm not proud to admit this, but in the moment I frolicked much like a child before that moment of lost innocence when a child starts to realize there are other people around them and they begin to care what those people think. My moment of lost innocence came relatively early in my youth. I remember it being probably around when I was ten. I once yelled like an idiot at professional sporting events, but now I couldn't show that enthusiasm or joy. That was my moment, and for years after I always envied those who didn't seem to care what others thought. The guys and girls who could dance and be goofy, typically those one might associate as being the popular kids. I never thought it would return.

But then on that cold and foggy day, a 23 year old stick in the mud from a small town in Ohio frolicked. He danced like a child and exclaimed how joyous an occasion this was. Thousands of people have ridden a bike across a country, it's not as rare or unique as most people think. Even more have set foot in the ocean, probably almost everybody in the United States I would venture to guess. In that moment I didn't care how trivial an act it was. I danced. I screamed. And then I rode my bicycle into the Pacific ocean.

And that ocean is cold! Geez you wouldn't believe how cold it really was. After standing in the water for just a couple minutes while Jared took pictures for me, I jumped out as fast as I could.

In May I graduated college. I was a first generation student and I understood that this accomplishment should have been a proud one, but in all honesty graduating college was not a big deal to me personally. I found no joy in that moment because it was not something I had long dreamed of, and yet we celebrated. We went out for lunch with friends and family. We took pictures with people we might never see again. We received cards with money and kind words.

But the most joyous moment of my life came in August. It happened on a quiet beach in Oregon on a cold and foggy day with only a few people around who I didn't know. The celebration was small in comparison. Instead of being congratulated by loved ones, we were told how incredible it was by a few elderly people who had just finished dinner at the hotel restaurant right on the beach. Instead of a dinner with all of our friends and family, it was just Jared and I, first at Taco Bell for appetizers and then Pizza Hut for the most elegant stuffed crust meat lovers pizza we had ever eaten. Instead of cards with money and kind words there were text messages. There was no ticker-tape parade held in our honor, just an open spot on a church's property reserved for our tent.

It wasn't the end to the trip I had always dreamed of. It was better.

Thank you for joining me. I told you we would make it eventually.