Pedaling Pilgrim Blog Home

My goodness… I don’t know if I can possibly capture the entirety of this day. Beautiful scenery, exhilarating riding, an unpleasant portage, an EMT call, a naked woman… I still can’t believe this was only one day; with all that we experienced, we must’ve been in some sort of temporal distortion where our 11 hour travel day was 36 hours long. But I guess a lot can happen when you’re on the move for that long.

We had a lovely send off from Jonathan and Gui in Portland this morning (only this morning?); we stayed in the air conditioned she shed last night, I heard no complaints about snoring, and we were on the move before 7. I discovered during my morning routine that the Ayers family is amongst the 27% of the population that dispenses their toilet paper from the bottom side of the roll: they’re Under Dispensers. As a fellow Under Dispenser in an Over Dispenser household, I felt a boost of compassion, comfort and confidence as I hopped on the saddle for a 79-mile day.

We rode a little under 10 miles and got excited about an opportunity for some bocce. We love to seek out bocce courts when traveling and though we still had 70 miles to ride, there’s always time for a game of bocce. Unfortunately the balls were locked away for these beautiful courts we happened upon. But, before forging ahead, we discovered a great breakfast restaurant less than a quarter mile away in Gresham.

Huckleberry’s was a Cajun themed breakfast restaurant with intimidating portions. It felt like a slice of Nawlins’ with music heavy on the washboard. Our lovely waitress Sarah greeted us with her alligator earrings and a hint of a southern drawl that she somehow picked up in her upstate New York upbringing. We fueled up to capacity and were quite prepared to attack a long day. Side note: In the movie Tombstone which people often quote (“I’m your huckleberry”), what Val Kilmer actually said in his ad lib is, “I’m your huckle bearer.” He’s volunteering to go to a likely gun fight with Wyatt Earp and telling him he’ll happily carry his coffin (a huckle is the handle on a coffin). So, if you take nothing else away from any of my blogs, maybe you’ve learned something here. Though Coffin Carrier doesn’t sound as good as a restaurant name.

10 miles after breakfast came the hardest physical challenge of the day: a 6-mile climb. We had a brief quarter mile rest after 3.5 miles, but this stretch was slow and steady uphill that we were somewhat concerned about last night. We pretty well crushed it. We were more than capable of powering our bikes with 40-pound payloads uphill at 3-5% grade for 6.5 miles. This was a massive confidence boost for days to come.

The reward at the top of the climb was a beautiful view and the most spectacular time I’ve ever had on a bicycle. We never turned the pedals, we rarely touched the brakes, we didn’t see any cars as we descended 3,000 feet on the Historic Columbia River Highway (the “king of the roads”). The morning started very overcast and cool, but now the sun was breaking through as the clouds were breaking away. The verdant surrounding forest was dense, lush and fragrant. When we approached the river level in the gorge I wanted badly to ride back up and do it again. It was an amazing rush that was like that scene where Walter Mitty rides a skateboard through Iceland. I don’t think I can quite capture the biking bliss in words.

After the epic descent, things got interesting. We still had lovely riding on the two-lane highway through the Columbia River Gorge. We stopped for photo ops at waterfalls, tunnels and overlooks. Then we came upon a crush of people as we arrived simultaneously with an ambulance at Multnomah Falls. Geeto briefly consulted with the EMTs, and I was thinking we already reached the point in our journey where Geeto is the savior. But, the distress call seemed to be a sprained ankle or mild exhaustion; nobody seemed too excited and we got tired of waiting for emergence on any real emergency.

After the leaving the tourist throng at the waterfalls, we started travel on a wonderful biking/hiking path for several miles. It seemed unbelievable that this path existed, and we were nearly the only people on the path. The path paralleled I-84, where we passed traffic choked by construction. We laughed at their misery as we pedaled in nature’s embrace.

After several miles, we met a stop sign that signaled… stairs!?!?! At first we were perplexed: how do we coax our trusty steeds down this unnatural obstacle? We did figure out there’s a trough next to the stairs to glide bicycle tires; but with the weight of our steeds and width of our panniers, we had to descend with a severe lean and ride both brakes hard. We each had a few mishaps that made our descent less than remarkable (the worst when Lecy’s Bluetooth speaker smacked a baluster and came tumbling down to smack me in the calf before it made its way to I-84. Geeto and I had a good laugh at Lecy’s expense, then we had a minor celebration at the base of the stairs.

Our celebration was relatively short lived; as we started to pose for a selfie we were interrupted by a woman clothed in hiking boots, a backpack, and a smile. 🤔 Geeto said, “I think you lost your shirt somewhere.” Her response, “I’m going for a naked hike.” That was fairly apparent to us already; I guess we had hoped for a more informative confession; she boldly ascended where we recently meekly disembarked, and we left scratching our heads…

After several more miles on the glorious trail , we were greeted by a “Trail Closed” sign. Fitting our overconfident and stubborn personalities, we felt those types of signs are only for the unambitious feint of heart. We even went so far as to attempt a worn footpath through invasive Himalayan blackberries to find a route around the landslide that wiped out our path. But there was no way to coax our steeds across the jagged boulders at a creek crossing and back up a steep hill to the trail. We gave up and headed back to…

… Interstate 84! Our worst nightmare coming true! From the start we’ve teased Lecy with plans to ride Interstate Highways all the way to Chicago. I never once seriously thought this would be our fate. Now our choices seemed to be: hop on I-84, or travel back nearly to Portland for another route. So, we found our 70 pound steeds sharing the trail with long haul truckers having a 28 ton weight limit. We had entered Dante’s 4th level. I wondered whether we were still living in the same world anymore as we traveled up the on ramp to join the flow of a different breed of long distance travelers. Thankfully, the shoulder was very wide, and nobody seemed to terribly mind our presence. One semi driver even changed to the left land to spare us from was prodigious wake, and he gave a friendly honk as he passed. Even in this land of gas and diesel propulsion, most people are gracious and kind. We exited after nearly 2 miles on I-84 without incident. Note: I happened to be researching last night – it’s perfectly legal to ride a bike on the Interstate in Oregon except in two defined urban areas; however we hope this unplanned emergency was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After we exited the Interstate, we were immediately greeted with the Columbia River crossing from Oregon to Washington. The “Bridge of the Gods” welcomed bikers and hikers; though the cross winds were too rattling for me to photograph the crossing, it was another exhilarating experience (though not one I would care to repeat). After crossing we felt like gods. We stopped for some photos and met Rich and Julie Davis. Rich is a retired Park Ranger and had lots of knowledge to share about gorge history, ghost forests, and the nearby wildfires.

5 miles later we stopped for a 2pm lunch at the Big River Bar and Grill in Stevenson. We still had 30 miles to travel, but we needed significant fuel and a break. The salmon sandwiches hit the spot, and they had the champagne of beers in 3 different size bottles. I thought Geeto was going to have another rescue opportunity as some kid in the nearby booth appeared to have expired. But when I looked a few moments later, he was gone. Did he even exist? After lunch we learned from Jessica that Fabio lives in town, though like a raccoon he’s quite reclusive. Apparently he also is a bit of a scofflaw as he chooses to dispose his personal garbage at local business dumpsters rather that traveling and paying for disposal at the county dump. His local reputation is fairly solidified as the Stevenson Trash Bandit.

We finished the day with 30 miles of brutal travel on narrow shoulders of Washington Highway 14. It was mostly stressful and tense, and it tested the resilience of our relationships and mental fortitude. We also were uninspired by the 800 foot climb to a dry barren campsite at the end of our day, so Geeto suggested we consider a hotel a little further down the road. After a few discussions, Geeto won us over on the idea. We booked a hotel in Lyle… the entire hotel! After 81 miles of riding, we stopped at the market in Lyle for snacks, then met the owner of the Lyle Hotel who let us in the back gate and essentially gave us free reign of the entire place. I started writing this blog on an Adirondack chair in our private garden; I’m now finishing it in our bar. We are literally the only 3 people in this building (the owners live several miles away). Just one more extraordinary event in an unbelievable unending day. We were blessed again.

Tomorrow promises to be another tough one. Strava folk: Day 5: Lyle to Bickelton. It appears there’s some 11-13% grade climbs in our 76-mile journey. This is likely impossible for us to pedal hills this steep and could result in walking our steeds or calling course correction audibles as we go. Anyone following me on Strava – I’m not sure what today showed as the app thought I was off route nearly all day. Strava continues to be equal parts ally and foe.

I’ve had several thoughts about a song addition today. When the alarm started this morning it was six o’clock already, and I was in the middle of a dream. But I don’t think I can subject people to the Bangles’ apropos homage to Mondays. Instead, I’m going to lean on Mark Knopfler with a somewhat less apropos track, but “leaving just enough room to pass” felt like much of our less pleasant miles on Highway 14 today: Once Upon a Time in the West.