Reaching Eugene was the milestone we had been waiting for. It meant we had finally reached the cluster of cities that represented the Pacific Northwest. It had taken 600 miles to reach our first real milestone and we were short on cash and especially short on energy.
Within 30 miles of Eugene, I got my first flat. We fixed it quickly and got on our way.
Luckily, after messaging every Warmshowers host in Eugene, one reached out to us: Dennis.
We arrived at his home in the evening. A red arch reminiscent of early Japanese architecture framed the entrance to the front porch. Sparkling lights ran along the rain gutters. We waited on the porch for Dennis to meet us. In the house, we could hear a woman speaking. He came riding up the driveway in full cycle gear and then led us inside.
The inside of the house was covered in photos of children and brightly lit. The main focal point was a huge dining table surrounded by around twenty tiny pastel colored chairs. Greeting us were Dennis' partner, Susan, and their foreign exchange student whose name escapes me at the moment. It was such a simple name that it has just floated right out of my head. Their home was also a childcare business and in the morning we were told to expect the sounds of about twenty toddlers.
Initially, there were complications with Bambi staying at the home, but we were put into a guest room in the back of the home. We took showers, ate (Susan gave of some of her delicious rice), had a great conversation about dumpster-diving, and then promptly passed out.
We expected to have a few quick slurps of coffee and then head out to Portland in the morning. However, as I wobbled into the kitchen surrounded by children, Susan let me know of a few changes. We could stay another night so that we could spend the day in Eugene.
And she asked me if I wanted scrambled tofu or eggs for breakfast. And that made my morning.
Susan gave us a tour of Eugene and bought us icecream at apparently one of the best places in Eugene. She was very proud that Obama had gotten icecream there. His favorite is mint chocolate chip in case you were wondering.
Also, Eugene is where Nike was invented.
And Eugene is named after this guy named Eugene.
Despite first impressions, Eugene is very yuppie-oriented. Which is a little nauseating.
Later, in the middle of the night, I ordered pizza.
Sidenote: For some crazy reason, the West Coast is obsessed with New Orleans' cuisine and know nothing else about what southern food means. And they're pizza is NOT pizza. Sorry, but not. I've found one real pizza place and that was in Oakland. It actually tasted right. Thin, cheesy, and greasy. It's making my mouth water right now. And then Yelpers complain about the good pizza. They complain about the southern food. WHY. That being said, I tried to find theplace on Yelp with the most negative reviews in order to get good pizza.
This guy came to the side gate where I sneaked out in case our hosts were sleeping; if they were even home. We hadn't seen them since 4 pm. The delivery boy proceeds to ask me if I was squatting due to my suspicious behavior.
"Like, do you need a place to stay?"
"Oh, no no, I'm allowed to be here."
Then he stared at me for a minute which prompted me to ask if he had gotten the tip through the online order.
"Oh yeah, I did."
Okay. So what do you want, I thought.
"You're just really attractive."
"Oh," I said awkwardly as I quickly swung the gate closed in his face.
The pizza was still not right, but it was a close I was gonna get.
It was at this point in time that I realized I may very well be an East Coast kid and there was nothing I could do about it.
The next morning the house was empty as we packed our things to go. At this point we had already planned to head home. We didn't have enough resources to continue. We planned on taking the train to Oakland the following afternoon. That is until we got a phone call from Hunter's mom regarding a girl named Haley who needed her car driven from Portland to Texas. It was perfect. We changed our plans to taking a bus to Portland instead, but we still needed a place to stay for the night.
Another Warmshowers host named Sherman let us stay at her place. It was much more relaxed than Dennis' house. She made dinner for all of us: a stir-fry with an egg.
The next morning we rushed to catch the bus. After a four hour drive, we arrived in Portland, Oregon. (Four hours versus two days on bike.)
We were in Portland's business district waiting for Haley to pick us up. She arrived, we broke down our bikes, stuffed 'em in her tiny car, and headed towards her home in Southeast Portland (the hipper part of the city).
We met her roommates and we were given a small bed in the upstairs art studio.
Hunter and I knew that our mutual friend, Gio, was also in Portland. Naturally, we wanted to go find him and hang out with him. Haley let us borrow her car, saying, "I might as well get used to it. You're taking my car anyway".
We found Gio busking outside of Voodoo Donuts. The line of tourists wrapped around the building. Whenever someone left, the carried at least two giant pink boxes of pastries covered in black skeleton design. Gio vigorously strummed an auburn guitar singing his folk punk/dark lyrics. The crowd was just staring at him possibly wondering what kind of music this even was.
Hunter and I ran up to Gio and hugged him, quickly catching up, with a live audience. Hunter grabbed the banjo lying at Gio's feet and without hesitation they both jammed together. This captured the people's attention. Hunter, Bambi, and I had a seat next to Gio's open guitar case."Okay guys, I wanna show you this new song," Gio rang before bursting into a rhythmic and bouncy chord progression.
Eventually, individuals started leaving the line, tossing bills into the case.
Gio would interrupt his playing just for a moment in order to thank them.
"Oh my god, thank you! You are bad ass!"
And with the compliments came more handouts.
We finally got up to leave, trying to coerce Gio to come with us to the Red and Black Cafe. A cafe that recently kicked a police officer from its property causing some controversy. Guess what side I'm on.
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| Literally pissing on Portland |
Unfortunately, Gio couldn't come with us. We went alone and had local beer and vegan cookies. We then went behind the vegan mall around the corner to check the dumpster for bread from the vegan bakery. Alas, we must've gotten there too late for all the goods were gone. (Thank you Ronel for the tip, by the way.)
We returned to Haley's house. Her roommates:
Lily: A redheaded artist with an interest in cooking and feminism.
McKenna: Haley's longtime best friend from Texas.
Kylie: Laid-back/smart conversationalist from LA.
Molly: Haley's sweet black lab mix.
Name forgotten, let's call him J: An aggressive/friendly kitten that scared Bambi more than once.
And the live-in visitor:
Name forgotten, let's call him M: A dreadlocked casual/nice friend of the girls.
They partied late into the morning listening to rap. Lily was supposed to be giving Haley a stick and poke that night.
Hunter and I tried to sleep upstairs against the loud bass-filled music. This would be when I realized I'm getting older. My future grumpy elderly self came to fruition that night as I damned the youths downstairs.
We were waiting for Haley to fork over the car keys so we could get the hell out of Portland, but she was nowhere to be found. When she did return to the house, Hunter asked her about it.
It turns out we had run a fool's errand. She had changed her mind about the car and now we yet again had to find another way to get back to Oakland.
Later that day we tried to find the Portland Food Not Bombs sharing. We were starving with no cash. We arrived at the park full of young people trying to rehash the sixties. Some of them were dressed for a festival, others were travelers, and others dressed in hippy garb. This actually grossed me out. A lot.
The Pacific Northwest so far had been this over-gentrified yuppie pretentious ego fest. Where were the real people? Was the entire population just young white people smoking pot and feeling like they were better than everyone else because they lived here? I thought back to what Susan had told us about the four quadrants of Eugene. About the one poorer quadrant. How they wouldn't get with the picture. Why was the Pacific Northwest so congratulated? It was heaven to only one small culture of people and it pushed anyone who couldn't afford it away.
I suppose I could be talking about any region of the United States, but it was these people's blatant disregard/ridiculously high self-importance that made me angry about the entire scene.
That park made me dislike Portland.
We asked Haley to drive us to the train station so we could catch the Amtrak at 2:30. She dropped us off at a Greyhound station with dismantled bikes and all of our bags in the hot sun about three blocks or so from station's entrance. I can tell you that I don't care much for her at all.
It took us an entire two hours to get our bikes into bike boxes and drag them to the luggage check-in. We made it onto the train with only four minutes to spare. Between the heat, anxiety, and heavy lifting, I had an anxiety attack that quickly transitioned into an asthma attack. No one in the station would help us.
While Hunter checked the bikes, I asked a girl sitting in the grass outside to help me bring in my bags and she did. I wish I could thank her again.
Once aboard, we would spend the next 18 hours listening to crazies on the train. There's a romanticized view on people who ride the train. Looking out the window, watching the landscape roll by, and listening to the steady chug of the train's engine. The people writing and reading and sharing stories with one another. Sharing meals with one another.
In reality, these people are some of the grossest people I've encountered.
At 10 pm we tried to sleep. A grandmother and her grandson behind us kept kicking our seats. They rustled through a bag of candy behind my head every ten minutes.
"Do you want one?"
"Oh, yeah, sure"
[Laughter]
[Loud obnoxious whispering]
[Straight-up loud obnoxious conversation]
We eventually asked them to shut the fuck up in the most polite way possible. They didn't.
We escaped the train at 9:45 am, an hour later than expected, due to a delay after the station right before ours. Meaning, we could have gotten off and walked and beat the train. Too bad we were stuck in a train yard and locked inside the train.
Nothing like feeling claustrophobic and having flashbacks of time spent in jail. Whoopee!
We got our bikes from the baggage cart and tried to assemble them. All of our luck must have been spent on the trip, because when we got my bike standing, my pedals were missing. With Hunter's flat back tire and my immobile bike, we called on Ali to help us out.
Ali and her beau showed up in Jack London Square with Hunter's car and theirs. It was nice to see Ali and nice to meet her partner. We caught up a bit and headed to Bicycle Coffee for some cheap, but great brews. Hunter and I were going to need it after not getting a wink of sleep on the train. We expected to drive at least half-way to Colorado.
Before leaving, we grabbed some grub at an Indian buffet with the last bit of cash I had. As we ate, we realized how much we really cared for Oakland. We felt like we were back home. The diversity of people. The realness of the city. The honesty of the city. Everyone was who they were. No one pretended. And we were all okay with this.
I'm really going to miss Oakland.
We hit the road, driving into Nevada and stopping for the night in the middle of the desert at a rest stop. We tried to sleep under a tree in our sleeping bags. Our tent was still wet from the rain in the last state park we slept at. As soon as I began to see visions and hear the faint sounds of my dreams, I was shot in the face by a sprinkler.
Hunter and I jumped up in our sleeping bags, sack-racing out of the range of the sprinklers.
We were exhausted. We wondered where we could safely get some sleep. I finally suggested we go closer towards the desert and farther from the rest area. We used the car to block ourselves from getting run over and slept in our sleeping bags in the rocks and sand. When we laid our heads down, the entire night sky was a symphony of stars. I remembered why I missed Taos. Within ten minutes, we saw two shooting stars and a meteor float across the infinite black ceiling.
"Wow, this is better than Colorado!" Hunter said.
The twinkling sky reminded me of the night Haylee, Ricky, Vinny, and I slept outside of Keith McHenry's van in the desert of New Mexico during a meteor shower. Vinny Kat had kept me awake all night screaming at me about how unsafe the desert was and why we weren't in the van. Above him the sky was on fire; bright streaks painting the night sky.
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| The desert the next morning |
The next day we drove through Utah hitting Salt Lake City and Dinosaur. We got into Vail, Colorado around 11 pm and reunited with Hunter's family sans Lexi. I wish Lexi was here though.
This is the last blog entry for a while. My bike trip is over for now until the next one. I'm thinking Vancouver Island to Seatlle. Then, a tour of Europe where I can traverse glaciers. Then, a tour through South America. Then, India. But my plans are never set in stone.
Goodbye for now,
Nik
