8/23/06 Portland!

Yeah, so I was bitchin' about them Willappa hills but they ain't got nathan on the endless climbs of the Pacific Coast Range. So many times I had to stop midway up the mountain pass because it was too much for me. Talk about a blow to the ego. From Cannon Beach I climbed 1,600ft to the summit of the mountain. Little did I know that hwy 26 had two more in store for me. Ouch.

Cannon Beach was actually pretty fly. Kinda touristy but real cute, lots of original structures. They had a lot of galleries which were pretty decent. I had some dirt cheap pizza and strolled the beach a bit. Haystack rock looked straight out of the "Goonies."

I ended up camping out on the summit of the Coast range. It was 8pm and getting dark and I had no idea where the top was. Just my luck where I decided to lay me down was it. I was so disappointed in myself, I just got up early and rode. Good thing I was basically over the range. It was another 25 miles of flat all the way to Portland which was just what the doctor ordered. It was kinda relaxing. Riding into town kinda sucked because it was on the highway which constantly had on and off ramps intersecting my path. Quite risky. One dude honked at me even though I wasn't even close to disrupting his trajectory. I flipped him off for a long time.

It was really good to see Liz again and just be able to settle down. She's got a sweet house in the hippy district with lotsa nice roomates who're all very generous. I like it here.

Last night we all went out for pizza and beers. Everyone in Portland is a beer snob, but they've got a ton of fine local breweries so can you blame them? Things got sureal when the Balkan folk singers just busted out in song like they owned the place. It seemed like totally the wrong venue for them but people were dancing all traditional and shit, very serious for some reason. Then this chick on a unicycle barreled through the door and all hell broke loose. We had to leave before being swept up in Balkan night fever!