The Trouble with Transience

As if my glorious rest with Bentley and Andi in Corvallis wasn't enough I extended my laziness for another 4 days or so. Cate, a friend from UNC who had been living in Portland, happened to be moving down to Eugene for law school. After dropping a Uhaul of her belongings she whisked my bicycle and me northwards to Portland. A couple of fine days were spent visiting old friends, making new ones and soaking in the vibes of Stumptown. I hadn't ridden from Portland to Ontario (the border with Idaho) but I had done the route from Eugene and loved it. Knowing this, I again hitched a ride with Cate down to Eugene. It felt rather funny to arrive back to the same town I had ridden through a week earlier!
That puts us on last Wednesday morning I believe. The forecast called for rain and wasn't going to change anytime soon but alas I forced myself back onto the road. After such fine companionship for the last week it was a very dreary ride into the storm-soaked hills, taxing me mentally perhaps more than physically. This is the "trouble with transience" I'm referring to; the desire to stop and hang out with good folks in a town or city you like but the conflicting urge to keep moving and stick to your "plan". I could easily have given up and lived happily ever after in the Bay Area, norCal, Eugene, Corvallis, Portland or Bend not to mention about one hundred other places I've been. Oh well...at least I know I have friends to go visit as soon as the call of the road hits!
So after leaving Cate and her awesome pup Sawyer behind in the dismal gloom of Eugene's weather (don't feel bad for her, she's on vacation in Hawaii now) I climbed into the mountains to reach Bend. Two wet, long, miserable days later I rolled into the sunny pleasant high desert town of Bend. The final leg from Sisters to Bend is a straight shot of about 21 miles on the highway but I got a bit audacious with my GPS and turned that 21 miles into God-knows-what of horrible, loose gravel forest service roads. A one and a half hour ride became 4 and a half hours. Finally rolling into Bend at around 10:30 PM, I was graciously hosted by fellow cyclist Brett on the first night. He had traveled a bit through Eastern Europe and we recounted our favorite moments until way past bedtime. Brett had to head to Portland to coach a youth lacrosse team he is involved with but I decided to stay on in Bend for one more day at least and catch the USA-England match.
Met some top-notch folks (tip o' the hat to Kai, Zach, Sean, et. al) throughout the weekend and once again was totally shattered to have to leave it all behind. Got a late start Sunday (had to visit a hardware store and grocery store for fuel and food) but the Desert Gods were with me and a tailwind pushed me about 95 miles towards Burns. Woke up this morning and cranked another pleasant, albeit warmer, 40 miles into Burns. I'd like to do another 60 or so and be halfway to Idaho but for now I'm letting the sun go a bit lower. Because the sun is up until about 830, you can ride super late into the evening here. Two more reasons to do so are that the GIGANTIC mosquitos come out at dusk (better to be moving!) and you can't sleep when its that light anyways.
I don't really know what to expect as I continue through Idaho and south into Utah. I've done sections of Idaho before, but those were farther north in the Sawtooth mountains. As much as I'd like to revisit those towns and sights its too far out of the way to Salt Lake.
From SLC the plan is to head loosely towards Denver where I hope to get a train to Chicago. The train will save me roughly 1200 miles thus extending my budget to allow more destinations back east. My apologies to all of my fans in Nebraska and Iowa. After Chicago its onwards through Ohio and PA up to NYC before dropping down the eastern seaboard to DC. This would technically conclude my trip, but I hope to also ride the Blueridge Parkway down to Asheville and then finish in true fashion with a ride through the Ole North State (brings tears to the eyes folks!).

That's about all I've got for you now folks. Hope you all are enjoying this spectacle as much as I am!