Day 77, August 3rd 2008, beginning in Eugene, Oregon

We woke up and had leftovers from the day before. It was still a full meal, and still quite good. We sadly had to depart from Eugene, and even worse, Meghan was heading home. We bundled up all of our clean clothing, said goodbye to Mandy and Joel, and hit the road for Portland.

Meghan brought us back to the bike shop where we left the bikes a couple days earlier. We unloaded all our crap from the car, and had to see Meghan off quickly for her to make her flight. I had a great time with Meghan there, as we all did, and it was tough watching her leave this time for the next month and a half. She made her back to the airport, and we hopped inside to pick up the bikes.

Since the store was so helpful, and we needed brake pads, we decided to buy from them. They also had a stand there for public use, hence the co-op, so we were able to put the brakes on easily. It took a while, and some helpful tips from Lionel, one of the workers there, for me to get both sets of brake pads on and at the right distance from the wheel.

By the time I was done, it was lunch time. Paul and I had discussed going to the farmer's market downtown to check it out and get some food before our bus back to Astoria that night. Lionel, the guy who worked there, was heading down there to get a burrito, so we tagged along with him.

We began talking about the trip as he showed us the way to the market. Because of his helpfulness, I bought his burrito for him, and he took us near the Willamette river, which runs through the heart of the city, to eat them.

Lionel had to head back to this thing called "work", and we went back to the market to check some stuff out. After walking around for a while checking out all of the unique shops and people , we pumped up the soccer ball and juggled a bit while being entertained by this hoola hooping chick, and some young drummers who were so not into the mainstream, which I'm sure was "totally lame".

After a while, we went searching for a field to play soccer on. We started heading down the waterfront area where there were more little shops and a couple of really good looking ice cream stores. We stopped in one, and got some. We took it outside and ate it under the sun by the water and people watched for a while. It was very relaxing.

When we left there, we continued on our pursuit for some greenery to shoot around or juggle on. We headed towards a college in the city, and ended up juggling for a while in some park nearby.

We kicked around for about an hour, and then headed back to the amtrak station where we would catch our bus to get back to Astoria, right over the border into Oregon. We made it to the station in plenty of time, so we got some food, and I called my former boss to see how things were going. Things were going well, and I was happy to hear he began riding his bike to work occasionally. He won't admit it, but I am surely the sole inspiration.

Paul bought our tickets for the bus, and was told by employee inside we wouldn't need the special bike pass since the bus wasn't nearly full. The bus driver felt otherwise, and after a somewhat heated dispute between Paul and this guy, we ended up having to buy the passes. I had never seen him so angry, it was fairly entertaining.

After that whole charade was over, we made it back to Astoria on time. We figured we'd head back to our friend Cassy's place to ask to pitch the tent again. We knocked and I think we woke her up, but she agreed that it would be cool again. We offered to take her to breakfast in the morning, but she mentioned she would be a little busy, so it seemed like it might be a hassle.

Once the tent was up, we headed back to the mini mart to charge some stuff and hang out. We put on the best of Will Ferrell, which I now had on my computer thanks to Meghan bringing my hard drive from home. We yucked it up at the good old mini mart to skit after skit of Will just being Will. Good stuff.

We chatted about heading down the coast and how it was going to be great. I told Paul how now that we're out here, I don't mind taking it slow. He agreed, but didn't believe I had the capacity to put in shorter days. We would see who would prove to be right. Once we got tired enough, we left Will to be continued and headed back to our tents.

Tomorrow would bring some beautiful pacific riding after a nice long 4 days off. We were charged up and ready to take on Oregon.

Life was good.