Track Town, USA (Eugene)

Heading out of Bend, we were basically south of Portland. From this point on, we were seeing signs for Portland...and going the opposite direction, so we could hit the Pacific Ocean. It was pretty funny, and frustrating at the same time. We were joking about how we should just ride to Portland and take like three rest days until August 10th. However... we were super excited to see the Pacific! I was way more excited about that than I was about getting to Portland.

That being said, our ride from Bend to Eugene, a 105-mile ride, was supposed to be another fun and pretty one. We had one final mountain pass to do: McKenzie Pass, and from there we would spend the entire rest of the day on a gradual downhill, eventually descending to triple-digit elevation, for the first time in over a month!

Unfortunately, though, the day had a different plan in store for me.

At only mile 10, I was leading my riding group and trailing another group by about 30 feet when I witnessed a nasty fall. Angelica hit an obstacle in the road and went down hard on her left side. Then, Becky crashed into her and flipped over her handlebars. It was a bad fall and I'll spare the details, but Angelica needed to go to the ER to get checked out because she had a cracked helmet. I went with her since I had seen the fall, and one of the vans took our bikes. I spent most of the day in the ER comforting Angelica and keeping her company. She was in good spirits and was patient with all the tests.

The verdict was that she had nothing broken, but a mild concussion and some road rash. They loaded her up on pain meds and released her. We got picked up by the food van and they headed out to meet the riders so they could feed them and also drop me off with them. Unfortunately riders were already far out and the road had a low speed limit, so it took us almost two hours to reach them! I was bummed that I didn't get to do our last mountain pass, but I definitely needed to be with Angelica at the hospital, and hey, now I have a reason to go back to Oregon!

As soon as we caught up to the last ride group, I joined them and finished out the last 40 miles with them. I was freaked out by the fall I had witnessed in the morning, so I was nervous and was keeping an unusually large distance between me and other riders because of it. It was pretty easy riding, and nice scenery, but for some reason I wasn't having a very good day. I was frustrated and tired and bored and just didn't feel like biking. We definitely all have days like that from time to time. Luckily, that's why we have awesome teammates to motivate us! Also, the continually beautiful rivers and trees made it hard to stay in a bad mood for long.

Lol that poor tree...

I do remember the last 5 miles being super fun: my group had accidentally clumped up with two other groups and there were about 12 of us all in a supergroup together. When we're that close to the host and we clump up on the road, we generally just roll with it and don't bother spreading out for that short distance. The water van caught up to us and drove behind us for the last few miles, blaring music and with Gina and Maroun (the passengers) dancing out the windows. We rode really fast in an attempt to beat the water van and rolled in with smiles!

In Eugene, we were hosted for the first time all summer by a synagogue! They were completely kosher, so they made us an entirely vegetarian dinner. A lot of us were nervous about that, but it turned out to be one of the best dinners we've had on the entire trip. Safe to say my expectations for how good a vegetarian meal could be were totally shattered. We had rice, some tofu that tasted like sausage, pasta, lots of fruit, salad, veggies, and cheese. Showers that night were interesting... we were at an aquatic center that was totally packed, and a lot of people (local Eugene people) were just wandering around naked... I know we've gotten more comfortable with group showers but this was a little awkward.

The next day was a very unique 4K day, and ended up being one of the most memorable of the trip!

The situation was that our host in Corvallis could not take us in until 6 pm, and we only had 43 miles to ride. Basically that meant we had a ton of time to kill!

We decided to do a sort of flex schedule, where each ride group could leave whenever they wanted and do whatever they wanted along the way. Some of our riders went to the local hospital to do one of our service projects: delivering chemo care bags to cancer patients. I opted not to go because unfortunately I'd be delivering one to my mom in just a few weeks.

A bunch of preschoolers joined us for our dedication circle.
This is Dan trying to explain to them what we do all day. They were terrified.

We were basically being tourists, but going around on a bike. That was something I'd never done before and it was really fun. No worries about parking, and also no worries about stuff being too far, since we weren't walking! I had some things in mind that I wanted to do, but we left most of the day open to just play it by ear. Also something I wasn't used to... usually I plan everything to the minute. Any of my travel partners can attest to that :)

In case you didn't know, Eugene is known as "Track Town USA," and the running capital of the world, because of Steve Prefontaine and several other very famous runners that have come out of the university. As a former track and cross country runner I was pretty excited to check it out. The downtown area is also really cute, modern, and fun. So, here's what my day consisted of:

1. University of Oregon bookstore
We were staying really close to campus and wanted to check out the bookstore for some cool souvenirs. I was eager to find some running things, and ended up getting a Track Town USA decal to add to my collection of stickers that I've been collecting throughout the ride. I also got an Oregon Track shirt for James and a Pre shirt for Michael (my brothers). Both of them are runners (way stronger runners than I ever could hope to be) and I knew they would be excited about getting souvenirs from Eugene. Biking through the campus of the university was also cool - it's a beautiful campus. But no surprise there as it seems everything in Oregon is awesome :P

Pre shirts at the bookstore

2. Pre's Rock
Not everyone saw the big deal about biking completely out of our way to see a rock, but I did! Steve "Pre" Prefontaine was a famous runner who once held the American record in seven track events. As a runner I appreciate his incredible talent and definitely wanted to see his memorial. My high school track and cross country coach was a fan of Pre, and on the bus ride to an XC meet at William and Mary, we watched a movie about his life. His famous quote, which I really like, is "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

Pre's Rock is a memorial at the site of the roadside boulder where Pre died a tragically premature death at the age of 24. Driving home from a party and under the influence of alcohol, he was killed in a car crash on a windy road called Skyline Boulevard very close to the university campus. 

Biking to Pre's Rock was... more work than we expected!! It was only about a two-mile ride from the campus, but as I said, the road is windy, which we have learned from experience often means.. MOUNTAIN! Skyline Boulevard is windy because it goes up a mountain. And it was VERY steep. Probably one of the steeper roads we've climbed the whole trip. We were definitely questioning our decision to climb the ridiculous hill just to see a rock, but before we knew it, there it was!

It was pretty exciting. There is an inscription on the memorial and then a lot of running shoes and some flowers that people have left next to it.

3. Voodoo Doughnut/Downtown Eugene
Voodoo Doughnut is an independent doughnut shop based in Portland that also has a location in Eugene. It is known for its unusual doughnuts and eclectic decor. It is supposedly an international tourist attraction and was a "must-see" since we were in Eugene. 

The selection they had was really interesting. Basically they put a lot of random things on their doughnuts. Here's a picture of some of their options:

I forgot to get a picture of it but there's also a maple and bacon doughnut.

Doughnuts almost always make me sick but I couldn't resist getting two. I later regretted that decision... but it was worth it at the time. I was boring and got two plain ones, but most of my teammates tried the cool ones. 

Zach enjoying his doughnuts

They said the cereal was kind of stale.. lol, bummer, since they look so cool! But I heard that the voodoo ones (shaped like a voodoo priest) were delicious. 

Voodoo Doughnut is located right in downtown Eugene, so we got a table outside in the really cute square while we were enjoying our treats.

Our view of the cool Downtown Eugene

A lot of people were intrigued by the large group of bikers and asked us what we were doing. Actually, a lot of them saw Portland on our jerseys and asked if we had biked "all the way there from Portland." LOL they were in for a surprise ;)

4. Thai food for lunch
That's right, we actually went to a sit-down restaurant and paid for lunch! It felt weird after getting donations the whole summer, but the food was great!! Not much to say about this one other than we relaxed at an outdoor table and took our time eating, people-watching and chatting about the summer. I don't think I took any pictures.

5. Finally rode to Corvallis
After eating lunch, it was already about 1 pm before we got on our bikes and started our 43-mile ride toward Corvallis. Obviously it wasn't going to take us 5 hours, so we still had more time to kill along the way... yay! 

Since we were out of the mountains and the forest, the ride wasn't as scenic as we were used to... but here's a giant field of mint!!! It smelled delicious!

It smelled delicious!!

We rode at a relaxed pace and took a nice long water break when we found the water van. Actually when we found the water van we only found Gavin (water van passenger), who looked bored out of his mind -- he had been sitting there for 2 hours already; due to the flex schedule he just had to sit there and wait for groups the whole day! Chris, the driver, had apparently gone for a run while waiting for us. 4K problems: when your water van driver abandons the water van to go on a run because they are unable to take even one day off exercising. Lol.

6. Piercings!!
As we got into Corvallis, Julie, Sarah and I split off from Nitkin and went to get piercings! I had researched the place beforehand and it seemed very legit. It was less than a mile out of our way, so we had planned to stop there on our way to the host.

Several people on the team were planning to get a tattoo with which to remember the trip. I don't want any tattoos but I did think it would be cool to have some type of permanent memento, so I decided to get a special piercing to put a little bike earring in. It's on my right ear about halfway up my ear. I can't put the bike earring in until it heals (right now it's a small stud), but here's the one I ordered:

I'm going to get "4K" engraved on the front wheel and "'13" engraved on the back wheel.
I hope it looks cool :)

Julie got her nose pierced and Sarah got her tragus pierced. 

We held each other's hands to squeeze while getting them...

Since we obviously didn't look we just walked in off the street, we got to talking to our piercer (named Tigger) about what we were doing. She was very impressed and ended up giving us a significant discount because of our good cause. That reminds me that I need to write her a good review on Yelp.

My group got in to the host around 6:45 and we rolled in at the same time as another group. The chemo care package group didn't get in for close to two more hours, as they had spent more time in Eugene. 

When we got in, my mom's childhood friend Abby was there. Actually, she'd been waiting for us and she and her son were helping the van drivers unpack the van when we arrived! I'd never met her, but she and my mom pretty much grew up together as next door neighbors and close friends. She brought us a big box of food involving chocolate milk (a huge hit that was gone almost instantly), bagels and cream cheese, peanut butter, and homemade cookies!! She had to make an hour and a half drive just to deliver us food and say hi - it was so nice of her! Thanks Abby!!

Me, Abby, and her son Noah

The food van had quite a selection of dinner waiting for us, so we all just ate whenever and then headed to a rec center to shower. I somehow ended up in a group of only under-21s that wanted to go shower, so I drove the giant food van to showers.... *gasp* It wasn't too bad but I still don't want to drive that thing on the regular.

I finally had the opportunity to blog after like 5 days of not being able to... not with wifi on my laptop but in a little computer lab of the boys' and girls' club. Yay!

With that we went to bed... next on the agenda was Tillamook, a coastal town just 10 miles away from the Pacific!