bike trip numero dos

Hellooooo universe from the house of Emma Pelton and her fine relative Pam. That would be in Portland, Oregon, land of bicycle lovers. The skies are blue and clear, the temperature settles in at 80 and makes us confuse the name portland with paradise.

So Emma has given us some Challenges for the road ahead: we must at least once busk for enough money for a meal, try to get a child on Paul's bike, with their consent and their parents. Fortunately, we well probably not actually attempt the latter challenge.

The movie MicMac gets a high recommendation from us all.

So this girl, Laurina. She doesn't think she can bike, keep up, yadda yadda yadda, "I'm so worried!" Well, guess what. Laurina has successfully left me in the dust every single day we've been riding thus far. We are arguing with head nods in opposite directions, but it is actually true. not. Not not. NOT NOT NOT. ok whatever you win.

Day one: a grand reunion at king's station in seattle. a lot of bike walking to Charlie Lane's house. an excellent warmshowers host i must say! totally laid back, enjoys basil and bumbleberry ice cream, writes all his notes and zine articles on a typewriter. he left on his own bike tour down the coast just yesterday, and i imagine he'll pass us rather quickly. see you in a few days, charlie lane.

Day two: we met up with our old roommate Josh and walked with him to the space needle. he just moved to seattle to go to cornish college of the arts for musical theater. he's totally going to rock it, cuz the kid is fearless and has some pretty solid musical aptitude. we also walked around the big martketplace called pike's place, where the music is fine and the apple cinnamon rolls make you salivate a little too much. i met a 29-year-old man named Elisah there and we talked for a long time about things you don't usually get to talk about. he has terminal brain cancer but he's pretty much never been happier/freer to do whatever he wants with absolutely no worries or inhibitions.
we meant to leave Seattle early in the afternoon but finally got around to it as the clock chimed four bells. We followed Rainier Avenue for a long time to get out of the city, but ended up making a big circle in a town called Renton as we looked for the next road. Luckily, this circle led us directly to the route that a man named Val was taking home. if you want to learn more about Val, check out rollingjackass.com. he is the man, with the most amped up bike i've seen in awhile, complete with a car horn. he led us to a bike path that quelled any of our navigational woes, and we followed it until dark, stopping to pick (or horde if you're Paul) some wild blackberries growing along the sides of the path. if you want to see paul in a state of no self control, lead him to some blackberry bushes and presto.
after the cedar creek bike trail ended we got on a road that led us to black diamond, and saw a shooting asteroid on this very road. really it was just a shooting star. but it looked like it just might make it to the ground.
after a quick little 11 hour nap in black diamond, paul woke us up with blackberry pancakes, praise richard. then we hopped on route 169 down to enumclaw, which is where the "chill" section of the ride ended for, umm, a few days. hello mountains. hello 20 mile uphills. hello numb hands and delirium. whoops, didn't foresee that one, despite knowing that we were headed toward Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens? hope to use the old noggin a bit more next time.
there were a lot of bikers cruisin this terrain, though, so hey i guess the whole world's crazy. they were actually planning on taking on the mountains, however, whereas we just ended up with no choice. we basically biked till we dropped every day for a few days. but the neverending old growth forests, quiet roads, and starry skies at night made it all quite worth it in my opinion. we're definitely in shape for the rest of the ride now, too.
near a campground called white river, we met a guy we'd seen in austin under the congress street bridge when we tried to see the bats with our friend. he and another man have been traveling for 15 years and plan on doing so for the rest of their lives. I wish i could travel around for awhile with them because i know they have so much to teach. i guess they're pretty much just out looking to make sure they see the world as it is and live simply and humbly without any expectations. as we biked away from them up a hill, i saw two dollars bills in the grass, all fresh and crisp like they just plopped down there. so i biked back down the hill and gave one to each of them. wonder if we'll see them again?
i named my bike arlinda. it means beautiful air in spanish. but that's not why i named it arlinda. i guess i don't really know why i did, but we did meet someone named arlinda in seattle and she was pretty neat. lauri doesn't think she'd appreciate knowing i named my bike after her. maybe it has something to do with naming my cadaver tissue arlo, i just like names that roll off my tongue like that?
ok so now we're in portland staying with emma, she is amazing, she and her friend Catherine have been showing us around and i feel kind of spoiled and warm and fuzzy staying here. we'll leave pretty soon, we just don't know when. so until next time, hasta pronto, sayonara.

love,
laurs and paul