Eugene, June 29

Wow, finally out of Corvallis. Really awesome town but I seriously think its some sort of black hole that keeps you in as long as possible. Took us 4 days to get out. The first day we decided it would be fun to check the town out and hang out basically which it was. Ate some good vegetarian food at a nice little place called Nearly Normals, looks like a small house. The next day(Thursday) we're ready to set out but Steve has some knee pains and we start looking for a free clinic to help him out. They're not open till Friday. Friday comes along and he doesn't get out of there for about 4-5 hours and they don't really do much for his knee. Actually the doctor who helped him was a bike expert or something and told him how he could adjust his bike so his knee's wouldn't suffer so much. Strangely it helped and his knee went back to normal. I wouldn't think going to a doctor for bike advice would be so helpful. Saturday finally comes along and we're out, we stop by the Saturday market and get some snacks. Free cookies baked in a solar oven(!!!), very cool stuff. Had some tofu burgers and ran into someone we met the first night we were in Corvallis.



After the free cookies and chatting up the Korean girl who sells pogs we ditch Corvallis finally. It's about 95 degrees out and was probably the most humid day I've felt so far. All the ice in my bottle was gone in 15 minutes and the water reverted to lukewarm after about 45 minutes. 6 miles out we see the Willamette River, and decide to try and hop in. We walk our bikes out towards the muddy shore and climb down to the water, its all mud, but cold mud so I'll deal. As soon as we get back on the road Steve gets a flat, in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere, in what feels like 450 degrees, with little knowledge on how to fix the tire. I could shoot this kid right here. There's a house across the way so I go over there asking for some ice and after some talking and subtle hints of our desperation out on the road, they drove us all the way back the way we came to Corvallis. See what I mean about it being a black hole? Even when we do leave, it brings us right back. These people were amazing though and so generous, As we were packing the bike the wife looks up and calls bike shops in town to see who can fix up steves bike the quickest and not only do they drive us into town but Rich, a volunteer fire fighter and paper mill worker, waits with us and has a beer and drives us back to his place for Popsicles. People are awesome. His two kids (11 & 13) do farm work in the summer planting and selling their own pumpkins.



After some orange flavored popsicles and drinking an entire cooler full of ice water, we head back out onto the road. The joys of all that are stripped from us after fighting against the sun and heat. In Harrisburg we meet someone who's touring the opposite direction of us and he's almost done. He's from New York and you can pretty much tell from his accent and his quick attitude, this guys got no time to chill.

There's more to this post but I'm out of computer time and the Eugene public library sucks and won't let me upload any pictures. When I find a better PC I'll hook up the goods.

***Edit.

Pictures
Camp situation, and why this looks like a link, I dont know.



The Center of the universe.


So I ask what kind of flower these are, the kid says, "Flowers? No man they're food" Apparently hospitals and other agencies buy these and cook them for food. They get paid 48k a month to grow these.



The Last bridge into Eugene