So, I have been working on another project and just launched it last weekend before seeing Dave Matthews Band and Phish at Fenway Park. It was a bit of a rushed launch but I wanted to get it out before these shows and a few this summer that I will be road tripping to. So I invite everyone to check it out and find your next road trip at StubStreet. Enter the Code: ASPROCKET for a chance to win an iPod. We will be giving away tickets sometime too but iPods for now.
I just returned from Portland Oregon and what a fantastic trip. When ever I travel I try to “get local”, that is pretend I live there. Read local (Oregonian), drink local (Roots, Rogue, Tug Boat, Bridgeport, Deschutes and many more) and sleep local (NW Portland Hostel). Coffee shops included but too many to name.
There was no shortage of unique bikes in Portland, this one no doubt had the smallest possible handlebars and I think I laughed out loud when I saw it. But at the same time wanted to ride it.
Mind the rails, the Max light rails that is. This was a pretty awesome light rail, it even had bike hangers and was free within downtown Portland.
The NW Portland Hostel run by Hostelling International was absolutely the best. The kitchen stocked with daily loaves of bread and pizza for dinner every night. But the single best thing about the hostel were the diverse people that it brought together. Ed from England was checking out breweries, Tracy from New Zealand was here for a work conference through her job in Japan, Natalie was taking a break from forestry work, Jason was on sabbatical and rumors of someone riding his motorcycle around the world just got in last night and was hoping his new tires for his bike had arrived from Germany. But we were all seemingly soul searching.
The highlight of my trip was simply fortuitous…well there may have been a little social engineering and luck. It started with the desire to rent a bike for the week. After not finding a suitable bike in any of the bike shops, they did have them but they looked like rentals and townie bikes and were expensive ($25/day), I decided to go by foot or rail for the first few days. This is when I met Tim, coffee connoisseur, at the farmers market. He made the best damn fresh ground, fresh brewed cup of coffee I’ve had. After inquisitively testing his city bike knowledge I simply asked if he had a spare bike that I could rent from him. Well hot damn he did and we planned to talk this evening and meet tomorrow. I figured I would rent it for the week or however long he wanted to rent it to me. That afternoon, after walking downtown, reading the paper and grabbing a few beers from Full Sail Brewery I headed back to the hostel to enjoy a beer on the back porch.
Enter Jason, with a propane burner who was testing the fuel hose in preparation for a 2 day bike ride to The Dalles the following day. We went around the block talking about cycling and my possibility of renting a bike from Tim and the invitation was on the table to join the 2 day adventure. I called Tim without hesitation but got his voice mail and left a message asking kindly if he could spare it sooner. Then Tracy, Natalie, Jason and I went to a Thai restaurant that Tracy had read reviews about and had been waiting to try all week. It was good, I had the Dangerous Asparagus with Tofu.
Tim got back to me later that night and after a few text messages and a phone call I arranged to meet at his place to pick up the bike the next morning. Even after a few beers at Rogue I couldn’t sleep and woke up at 6AM, packed my things and got some coffee and waited for Jason to rouse. We then packed up and headed to pick up the bike.
It was a sweet ride, I am sure I could not have rented a nicer bike from a shop. This bad boy had a Brooks seat and 4 speeds. What else would one need? Oh and wind stabilizing handlebars with cork bar ends. Thanks again Tim!
And after some strategic packing some 45 lbs on Jason’s panniers we were off…
After almost 15 mi of suburban riding we reached Troutdale and began riding the Historic Scenic Highway.
There were many vista points along the way.
There were also five or six waterfalls, including the highest, Multnomuh Falls (542 ft).
After 8 hrs and ~65 mi we reached Hood River.
Hood River come to find out was home of the Gorge Games kite boarding competition that was taking place that weekend.
So we decided not to continue biking to The Dalles and as it turns out there was a forest fire that weekend. It was a beautiful evening, the sun was setting over the Columbia River, the kite boarders were packing up and camping by the river seemed like an ideal spot. We did go into town for the pirate pub crawl, tried out some local brew pubs, wine shops and just watched the post day gorge game events. Back to the sleeping or should I say laying down in the grass wrapped in all of Jason’s extra clothes shaking from the cold river winds trying to fall asleep. Well that didn’t last long and I found myself heading into town at 4AM in search of a hole to crawl into out of the wind. Now I never took Homeless 101 in college but if I did this would have been the first tip. Seize a public bench and before it gets dark. Well luckily there was a public library with a nice wind sheltered bench. That lasted for an hour before I milled around the town a bit until a coffee shop opened. I met up with Jason again and we fueled up with coffee and bagels then hit the road.
The first task was to cross the Columbia River as we were planning on taking route 14 in Washington to head back to Portland. The caveat was that no pedestrian or bike traffic was allowed to cross the bridge. After talking with toll booth Bertha we were instructed to “hitch a ride”. It only took about 10 min to find someone with an empty truck bed.
Here is a shot from the across the river from where we spent the night. Mt. Hood is in the background.
There were many parts of Rt. 14 that had treacherous shoulders. The tunnels were bike safe with bike lights to notify drivers.
The rest of the ride back was pretty leisurely, we did stop after 30 miles to play a round of putt putt at the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort. We continue on and came across Beacon Rock and hiked to the top for lunch.
Beacon Rock Summit.
Continuing along Rt. 14 with a minimal shoulder log trucks and other big trucks were passing and we hit a nice 10 mi climb and 5% 3 mi decline. It’s usually nice to know that when you hit an up hill there is sure to be a downhill following it, gotta get up to get down. The one thing I enjoyed about the log trucks was the smell of fresh cut trees that filled the air as they passed. Other than that the thought of getting crushed between it and a side wall of rock or pushed over the edge of the road was not too appealing.
We continued on for another 30 miles and picked up just outside of Portland by my Father who had flown out the day before for adventures in birding the west coast.
After getting back to Portland we had a nice dinner at a Greek restaurant that Jason knew of and who had some friends working there. We then had a pint and talked about the future of the universe, well more or less and parted ways. Jason is keeping a blog of his sabbatical if you want to read more, travelographer.wordpress.com.
The next part of the trip was to discover unseen birds. A sometimes tedious but always pleasant task. We started around Portland then headed west to the coast. But not before the Portland International Beer festival and then Sting Summit Bluegrass festival in North Plains.
I don’t think I could say enough good things about Portland and Craft Beer. It was great having a unique brewery on every corner. I have been a home brewer since the winter of 2004 and 3 of the top 10 hops in mine or any home brewers freezer come from Oregon. Willamette, Mt. Hood and Cascades to name a few. Pub pint prices were also at a reasonable rate of around $3. And this was a true pint, 16 oz, not the $5, sometimes 14 or 12 ounce plastic cups that they get away with serving in Boston. This pint skimming practice was recently covered in the Wall Street Journal.
Deschutes Brewery had a tip bin above the bar with a funnel that dropped down to a spittoon like bucket. It was fun to attempt tossing quarters in. Sometimes they would bank off the wall and ricochet off glass below. The bar tenders had it down. They also had lots of copper kettles.
On to the festival, sponsored by Rogue, where peacocks roamed and neo-hippies flourished and danced like a phish out of water.
Lots of picking going on, Yonder Mountain String Band, Keller Williams (hiding behind the pole) and many others picked their way in.
On to birding the coast, first stop was Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge where the birds love to leave their mark, check out the poop stains on this rock.
Always in search of the illusive puffin, here at Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, OR.
Driving up the Oregon Cost 101 from Tillamook, OR.
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