Portland to The Pacific
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
9
31
Trip End
Mar 27, 2007
Florence,
Oregon,
United States
Monday, November 13, 2006
A diverse, mostly-elegant, range of bridges spans the Willamette linking the eastside of the city with the west where the downtown area, centred on Pioneer Square, is located. Downtown is a holistic blend of the old and the modern: understated low-rise sits easily with stately redbrick. Trams trundle through leafy streets and bikes zip to and fro along numerous cycle lanes. Elsewhere in the city, the wooded hillsides Mount Tabor and Washington Park provide peaceful retreats with views of the surrounding mountains
Halloween Pumpkins
.Portland is a young and increasingly cosmopolitan city, which is liberal in its politics. It's also an enlightened city: the most literate - home to Powells, the largest bookshop in the country and Multnomah County Libraries, the most-used public-library service; and, perhaps not surprisingly for a city so close to nature, the most ecologically-aware - in terms of environmentally-sustainable public-transport and bicycle-friendly policies.
I based myself at Hawthorne Boulevard on the city's eastside, home to the city's burgeoning alternative scene. The boulevard bustles by day and night with the disciples of an eclectic mix of sub-cultures - punks, hippies, eco-warriors, socialists and sapphists among others. Hawthorne's most-prominent - and most-bizarre - landmark is the Bagdad Theatre, the exterior of which is illuminated at night with a green-neon Islamic dome and crescent. The Bagdad plays host to a microbrewery as well as a cinema that shows re-runs of undoubtedly blasphemous movies.
I spent five days altogether in Portland: exploring the city by day and chilling-out at the rambling-wooden house where I was lodged during the evening. Hostel-life provided a great opportunity to meet people, swap stories and gather intelligence for onward travel. A variety of interesting characters - from across the United States and beyond - passed through the building during my sojourn. There was: an ex-cop from Vegas who was the resident tea-maker and cycling expert; a Milwaukee man who taught ballroom dancing to the clinically depressed; a Minneapolis mountaineer en route to Alaska to work as a fisherman; but I ended up spending most of my time sitting on the front-porch with Christophe, a San Diego-based Reggae DJ and Mihir, a British-Asian who'd temporarily exchanged his native Geordie accent for a comical Dixieland twang. Surrounded by glowing pumpkin-lanterns we would drink copious amounts of wine and watch the freaks pass by on the boulevard.
Halloween morning was crisp and clear. By contrast I was feeling a little shell-shocked, having spent much of the previous evening at the bar in the Bagdad Theatre. Eventually, I got my act together and pedalled west across Hawthorne Bridge and thence to Pioneer Square where I secured my trusty steed to the bike-rack on the front of a Number 33 bus and hoped on to enjoy the ride. From Oregon City a couple of suburban transfers carried me along busy Interstate 99 as far as Woodburn.
After taking on some carbohydrates at a grocery-store food-counter, I set out to the southeast along Oregon 214, a quiet road running along the eastern side of the broad, flat Willamette Valley among long rows of vines and fields of freshly ploughed earth. Here and there, a brightly coloured pioneer barn dotted the landscape and the steeple of a wooden church rose from a leafy copse. Along the length of the eastern horizon stretched the long low ridge of the Cascades, presided over by the snow-capped cone of Mount Hood.
I was sailing along, enjoying warm sunshine and the near-perfect symmetry of the Oregon's most iconic mountain when suddenly, a hollow report sounded beneath me and I found myself struggling to stay in the saddle. On closer inspection I discovered that a metal spike had torn a hole in the wall of my badly worn rear-tyre. After changing the inner tube, I set out again, arriving in Silverton (pop. 7,431) just as school was getting out. Traffic picked up on the far side of town as the highway entered a realm of green, undulating pastureland. Across the valley the sun dipped ever closer to a distant ridge, flooding the landscape in soft golden light - it was time to get a move-on. I dug deep on short sharp climbs and raced down equally steep descents, wary of the litter-strewn shoulder after the earlier mishap. A couple of less-than-considerate motorists resented my presence on the main-body of the highway, giving me the horn and finger when mirror-signal-manoeuvre would have sufficed. One obnoxious adolescent in a passing pick-up went so far as to lean through the window and shout 'dip-shit'. I so wanted the truck to stop so that I could join the dots on his spotty little face.
After a brief refreshment-stop at Stayton (pop. 6,816), I set off westward on a winding road through gathering dusk. With the bike in high gear I got down to business, working the pedals as hard as I could. The ghoulish faces of pumpkin lanterns glowed in the porches of isolated farmhouses while Halloween witches scurried to and fro and the corpses of flattened rodents adorned the roadside. I could feel the spirits at work inside of me but the darkened roadside was no place to stop. Eventually the lights of Jefferson (pop. 2,847) come into view and a green neon cactus appeared. I dashed into a Mexican restaurant faster than you might say 'Speedy Gonzalez'.
Sometime later I pushed my bicycle through an industrial suburb of Albany (pop. 42,282). A labyrinth of steel pipes glinted in the moonlight while nearby, chimneys spilled mysterious clouds into the atmosphere. Though it was cold and I was soaked through with perspiration I was in no mood to stop to change a tube - so I kept walking until, a couple of miles further along the road, I came to a motel.
The Willamette River rises in the hills south of Eugene, Oregon and flows north for some two hundred miles before emptying into the Columbia River just beyond Portland. The city of Albany lies on the west bank of the Willamette at roughly its halfway point.
Beneath a sepulchral sky I set out southwest from Albany just after noon the following day. A cycling leaflet that I'd picked up somewhere guided me out along a series of back-roads to the Peoria Road, which would carry me south. The highway was arrow-straight and sparsely trafficked; the plain that it crossed was smooth and flat; and before long I had established a steady momentum. To my right, the Willamette, its waters as grey as the sky above, wandered back and forth across the valley bottom beneath a line of trees. Horses stood at ease in their pastures and the rich scent of fleshly-ploughed earth filled the damp air. Outside a Mennonite school, head-scarved women awaited their charges. Rain showers hurried me along and before I knew it I was shivering outside a gas station on the edge of Harrisburg (pop. 2,795), a hot cup of coffee in my hand.
As I pedalled south towards the town of Coburg (pop. 969) dark skies closed in, obscuring the contours of the ranges on either side of the valley. I stepped up the pace and the mileposts flew by; Coburg came and went a blur of artificial light. Finally, on the approach to Eugene (pop. 148,595) the long-threatened deluge arrived.
Two days later the downpour continued unabated. I was sitting on the second-floor of Eugene's municipal library - a second-home to those of no fixed abode - looking on as rain fell onto the sodden street outside. People scurried from the parking lot to nearby buildings with hoods pulled up or umbrellas raised. Leaves piled up on the sidewalk as the seasons changed. Halloween had come and gone and the clocks had moved back. By five o'clock the colour of the sky would turn from leaden-grey to black-as-night. But no matter how many times I checked the long-range weather forecast, the message remained the same. Across the western seaboard, from Seattle to San Francisco the fronts were rolling in. And that was just the start of it.
As I wandered down to AMTRAK to check out the departures for San Francisco, my phone chirped to indicate the arrival of an SMS message. It came from my (London-based) North American travel guru and its tone was emphatic: 'You'll miss all the best stuff if you take the train!' I turned around and headed back towards the hostel where I was lodging. It was no time to start backsliding.
It was a Saturday morning, overcast but dry, when I left Eugene on a suburban bus, intent on standing on the shore of the Pacific Ocean before nightfall. Around the breakfast-counter of a grocery store in nearby Veneta (pop. 2,755) I fell in with a group of Jehovah's Witnesses, who questioned me politely about my trip. As they went off to spread The Word an elderly female zealot turned back to push a tract on me.
Pedalling west on Oregon 126, I left the Willamette Valley behind and began climbing into the mist-shrouded forests of the Coastal Range. After a minor delay caused by a puncture, I arrived at the head of a pass to find that it was raining on the far side. As I picked up speed on the descent I heard the dreaded 'pop' sound once more. Cursing like a cyclist with no spare inner-tubes stuck in the back of beyond in pissing rain, I drew to a halt and levered off the back tyre to look at the damage. It was ugly: there was a large hole right on the join of the valve; and the tyre itself was disintegrating - it had no grip whatsoever. I patched the tube as best as I could and set off again. Five minutes later the tyre was flat again. I repeated the procedure again with the exactly the same result - failure. With the nearest town was thirty miles distant, I pushed my bike half-heartedly along the road and tried to thumb a ride whenever a vehicle approached, which wasn't very often. I found no takers.
I'd walked for a few miles when it occurred to me that I was getting nowhere fast. I had however, succeeded in getting very wet - but unfortunately that was a bad thing. It was clear that a change of tactics was required. I sat down under a large tree and wondered what on earth I was going to do. Just then, I found the religious tract in my pocket. In lurid images it told a story from the Book of Revelations, a story that bore absolutely no relation to my predicament whatsoever. In fact, it was a lot of sanctimonious bollocks that angered me no end: The wine of fornication? I would drink a skin-full: The Scarlet Whore of Babylon? She could sit on my face: and as for the seven-headed beast? Well, first it could go and f**k itself; and then it could go and f**k any Jehovah's Witnesses who were brave enough to cross its path - amen!
Eventually, I found some masking tape and wrapped it around the puncture several times; then pumped up the tube and refitted the tyre. It was a nasty hack but it worked and that was all that mattered.
I got back in the saddle and pumped the pedals for all it was worth, anxious to make up for lost time. Steam rose from the forest around me as the numbers on the mileposts began to diminish. The highway descended into a valley and ran for a time alongside a bubbling river, before climbing again across a steep wooded hillside. Pausing to put more air into the dodgy tyre, I hurriedly bolted down a chocolate bar while, overhead, dead leaves swirled around like confetti at a hippie wedding.
I followed the road into a tunnel and emerged on the far side amid fierce wind and driving rain. With water impairing my vision, I put away my glasses and strapped on my insurance - a helmet. Haring down the mountain with adrenalin coursing through my veins, I avoided the shoulder - full of stones and wet leaves - at all costs. A pick-up sat right on my tail honking impatiently. Three times and I'd had enough: 'F**k you!' I screamed at the angelic-looking little boy who was looking through the passenger-side window.
At the tiny settlement of Mapleton Highway 126 rekindled its acquaintance with the Siuslaw River, now wider and deeper, with its banks lined by small boats. As I followed the valley west into the face of a gale, the rain pounded down harder than ever. Around the numerous holes in the road-surface, large pools of water had gathered. I kept going, wondering if my bicycle could aquaplane until, at milepost seven, my rear tyre lost pressure, this time for good. It was a wonder that it had come so far.
The storm raged all night and continued without respite into the following day. The Siuslaw burst its banks and swallowed up Highway 126, the main road-link between Eugene and the Oregon coast. Fortunately, I was able to follow all of this from the comfort of a motel room in Florence, the town to which my rescuers, a young couple in an SUV, had delivered me. I hadn't had to wait long before they showed up to carry me those all-important seven miles to safety and for that I had cause to feel thankful.
Rain was still falling when I wandered down to the Siuslaw on Sunday afternoon. A line of smooth-sided sand dunes extended along the far bank of the swollen river before it curved north, prevented from discharging itself by a long sandy spit that separated freshwater from brine. Though I could hear the boom of the ocean, it remained unseen behind the low barrier of sand. I followed a road north along the leeward side of the channel and up onto a sandy pine-covered ridge. Deserted trailer parks and shuttered summerhouses sheltered among the trees. A sign reading 'Tsunami Evacuation Route' pointed towards a trail that led off into the brush nearby.
A couple of miles further along the road, a track led down onto the dunes abutting the river just as it spilled out through a breach in the bar. From the summit of a dune I caught my first glimpse of the Pacific, a raging mass of grey-green fury under an angry sky. After clambering over a tangle of driftwood logs that were half-submerged in sand, I emerged onto a beach that tapered off into the gloom a short distance off. Small wading birds foraged by the water's edge, dancing nimbly around each surge in the tide, while elsewhere on the strand, a couple of hardy souls exercised their dogs. I climbed atop a pier of black rock, one of a pair guarding either side of the channel entrance, and watched awhile as a never-ending jumble of waves surged in to break, one resounding thud after another, on the sands below. Peaceful was one thing that it was not.
ENDS
