Corvallis, June 25

I'm in the Corvallis Public Library now using their computers and trying to avoid eye contact with the person sitting directly in front of me, not as easy as a feat as you might think. We started on monday in Portland and made it to Salem in about 8 or 9 hours. 3 of those hours spent being lost and having no idea whether we turn right left or go back the way we came. "Is this still River Road? I don't even know anymore"

Steve and I posing next to the Belafonte

I have never seen so much farm and endless fields in my life, riding through was really calming since there was nothing going on besides the occasional tractor or 18 wheeler. Which is no good for me since I have a phobia of being crushed to death by a vehicle. Luckily it hasn't happened yet, in fact I haven't even fallen into anything. Steve on the other hand crashed into 8 mailboxes, breaking on completely off its post.

"Breaking mail boxes are a federal offense!"

Finally we ended up in Keizer after being detoured for about 2 hours. We bike an hour to a park that we're told we can camp at for the night, turns out its a day park. With Cougars. We turn around and bike an hour back uphill to find a fire station. I ask for directions while subtely hinting to them that they should just let us sleep in the fire department, that didnt happen. We did get directions though and an ETA of 45 minutes. After 2 hours of following those directions we realize that they're full of shit, I think it was when I started merging onto a busy highway that tipped me off.

We finally make it to the camp site and we're so exhausted that we barely get the tent up and I collapse after a freezing cold to scalding hot shower. Sorry, no pictures...too...tired..

The next morning we start heading towards independence and we're going at glacial speeds. Our legs are worn out, the entire crotch/butt area is bruised and hurts to even sit on and we're suffering from cramps and cuts all over. Steve even lost feeling in hald his left hand, we have yet to figure out if thats something we should be seriously concerned with. After hours of biking and a sprint across an 8 lane free way, we make it to indepence. A town with a population of 5 or so it seemed. Really eerie place, nice neighborhood, nice looking houses, a half built high school and noone around. We walk into a chinese restaurant to get our chopstick on and even that place seemed deserted at first. The waiter seemed suprised to see us, I guess its hard to run a business in a ghost town.

I'm Messy

After that town it was just road and sun and farms and sun and vast plains and road and sun, forever. I'm tired of typing so here are some pictures.

Corvallis so far is really amazing. The city seems to be made just for bikers, there are bikes everywhere and not as many cars. I haven't seen a lot yet but everyone's been very nice so far. One guy we met, John, even mapped us a route to take and gave steve a bag, some pants, and some ass cream, you know, for the sores. And our camping neighbor Chase has supplied us with some food and some stories.

Till next time