Grabbing a campground slightly outside of Portland, allowed us to detach from our trailer and head downtown. We had two goals for downtown, meet a friend from Generous Giving and pick up my new gravel bike from River City Bikes.
One of our goals with this soon to be cross country trip, is to meet up with friends and friends of friends and see what cool and interesting things are happening in their lives. Hence, a lunch date with Christie Wilson. Over lunch at Farmhouse Kitchen (Highly recommend if you like Thai) we learned that Christie had a event planning business with over 20 employees in the Portland area and sold it when she and her husband Josh decided to start a family. Not only that, years later they remembered they had dreamed about living internationally and through a series of fortunate events, found themselves 4 months later homeschooling in England. LOVE those stories. Of course learning that she was a big Young Life supporter and enthusiast for formation practices, endeared me to her all the more! We initially got to know her as she works with Generous Giving (they are the organization behind Journey Of Generosity) as she is the trainer and contact point for JOGs. If you’re interested in learning more check out https://generousgiving.org/the-story-of-generous-giving/ It’s an amazing story and we would love to take you through a Journey of Generosity.
From lunch we headed to the bike shop where I had ordered a very difficult bike to find - the Creo 2 from Specialized. It’s an electric gravel bike. Why always electric you might ask. Well, a couple of factors play into my decision. 1) My husband is 6 years younger and almost a foot taller than me. He’s fast and strong. 2) I have arthritis in my hips and most of the time when I exercise my hips and the tendons that attach them are in pain. 3) I want to invite Piper into our bike rides and bringing her adds 100lbs to any ride. (More on the maiden voyage later) Hence the electric bike.
Side note on Portland: there was improvement since the last time I was there. We didn’t see any tent cities but we did see someone lighting up a crack pipe and plenty of people had the fentanyl bends. Very sad. And yet it was clear that Portland has been working towards finding solutions for housing and hopefully helping people out of the cycle of drug use as it was far better than it had been in the past and not nearly as bad as downtown Spokane.
From Portland we headed to Newberg where we met with our friends the Tibbetts. We hit a couple of beautiful wineries - I had no idea there were so many of them in the Willamette region - and had some amazing dinners. Brayden Tibbetts joined us for one evenings wine and dining event and it was lovely to catch up with him. On Monday we headed out to the coast with Piper where we enjoyed a 5 mile hike of vistas, ferns and mud. It was a reminder that Oregon is a stunningly beautiful state with varied landscapes.
With those varied landscapes in mind, we headed off yesterday to Cottage Grove where supposedly there are the most covered bridges on the west coast, but we didn’t see that many. It was a great inaugural ride with Piper in the trailer, though I’m going to say she’s still in probation stage for getting to go on bike rides. At one point she jumped out of the trailer (might have been because I clipped a sign…) and then was hopping around on 3 legs (she was fine). And then she started whining to get out and wanted to run along side. At her 9 years of age though that doesn’t last long, though in her mind I think she thinks she’s a puppy. (I can relate). Here’s a short of the day:
https://youtube.com/shorts/xMjrQFE6atg?si=rZJXIpiMfOsvmSfB
Headed out mountain bike riding this morning - without the dog.
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