Go Ducks!

Here are some pics from the first day's ride with Andy. We stopped in Seaside, OR to get out feet wet in the Pacific. The big rock in the background is Haystack Rock. You may recognize it from the end scene of The Goonies, when One Eye'd Willy's pirate ship breaks free. And yes, those are Baby Ruth's we're holding.




I want to thank the Ducks of the U of O because I'm writing this from a free library computer. Jake's laptop is a little water logged. The theme of the past few days has been rain, and a lot of it. It rained at the end of Monday for about an hour and a half. The upside is that we ended in Tillamook and were able to get an hour in the Tillamook Cheese plant visitor center. I had a bunch of free cheese samples and a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. It was delicious and the coffee was hot. It's been about 50-55 degF when it rains so it's tough to stay warm when you stop. As for the Factory floor, the big blocks of cheese in the lower right contain 8 of the 1 lb blocks before they're cut.

Tuesday was pretty miserable. Zack was timely with his inspirational text message quotes because it rained for the first 50 miles yesterday. That was a new experience. For all of the New Orleans kids reading, it was exactly like the first weekend of Jazz Fest this year. And for everyone else, just imagine the wettest you've ever been and double it. It actually wasn't all bad because it made for some fast miles. The dry motel room at the end of the day was calling my name. Jake and I made a deal with Andy that we won't camp in the rain. I caught him enjoying it.



We made it to Eugene, OR today after a good 60 mile push this morning. We actually left town at 8:40am and made here by about 1:00pm. We were going to stay here for the night but we have a 5000 ft climb tomorrow over 50 miles that we want to put a dent in this afternoon. We're gonna chill here for another little bit and then push on. There's talk of snow up in the pass but we'll deal with that when we get there. I can't wait for full time sun.

Also, we met a guy today riding solo. His name was Gary and he's a school teacher in OR. I think he was late 50s early 60s but he was chugging along. He's using his regular road bike and towing a trailer. We rode with him for a while but our pace was a little fast so he dropped off. It turned out that he was a better map reader since we missed the main turn into town. We made it eventually.

Ok, that's all for now. Thanks for reading and I hope to make these a little more frequently.

Chris.