Gorging ourselves on sweet things

We took off from Portland this morning, sadly leaving our compadre, Jack, in the driveway of our warmshowers honeymoon suite we've stayed in the past couple of nights. Jack will take a train back to Santa Cruz tomorrow and couch surf until he hopefully finds work and rests his knees a while. We love and miss you jack. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Our host Jennifer escorted us through the maze of bridges and bikeways that make Portland, and cut us loose just before we hit the Columbia river. We turned our wheels east and set our course for Clarkston, WA where we'll pick up our order of Big Sur bars and blaze on to Missoula.

Tonight we are camping in the backyard of the owners of the Mountainview Cycles in Hood River, OR. How we ended up here is an even better story.

We leisurely made our way east today, stopping at a great view of the gorge, filling up on snacks and water at a bike event fill station while sharing our story with passersby. Past Multnomah falls, we have less than 25 miles left for the day when one of Ryland's rear panniers pops off his rack after hitting a few bumps. The pannier hits the ground, rolls at high speed and flies off a 40ft ledge onto highway 84 where immediately it was strike by a truck traveling ~50 mph and sent it another 100ft down the highway. Lorenzo managed to retrieve it and returned a peanut buttery pannier ripped and broken but mostly intact with his sleeping bag taking most of the impact. The peanut butter jar couldn't take the impact and exploded inside, covering everything. Fortunately our resources at hand allowed us to keep moving and make to a bike shop in Hood River before.

But wait there's more...

Five miles before town, Matt's tire explodes on the side of the hwy. a quick tube change gets the whole crew to Mountainview Cycles where ryland needs a new pannier and Matt a new tire. The owner, Julie, whose been running the shop for 19 years, took care of us and sponsored us with water bottles, cages, and is going to warranty Matt's tire. As if that wasn't enough she invited us to camp on her property up in the hills. 2 acres, open grass, trampoline.

Today has been sweet. Sleep under the stars tonight.