Day 69, Saturday, June 28
I rolled out of bed at 5:30. John was already dressed and packed and making coffee, apparently excited for our penultimate day. Hai did not get up to see us off.
We rode a few blocks to the Willamette River and up the Eastside Esplanade. Contrary to the beliefs of people who watch only Fox News, Portland has not burned to the ground. It has its problems, but it is still a beautiful, lively city.
Planning the trip I had hoped to ride over the Tillicum Bridge, Portland's newest bridge that is restricted to pedestrians, cyclists, and buses, but we had to content ourselves with viewing it from the Esplanade.
Our route took us instead across the Hawthorne Bridge, up through Goose Hollow to Washington Park where we had the big climb of the day over the west hills. We climbed past the International Test Rose Garden, the Portland Japanese Garden, and the Oregon Zoo, but I was too busy climbing to stop and take pictures.
Once over the west hills we took a series of paths streets through mostly residential areas in western suburbs of Portland. We did manage to find a coffee shop for some breakfast, but a couple of miles past that we had some regrets when we passed a Krispy Kreme shop. We should have waited.
I suppose I knew how far the burbs extend out of Portland, but it took us a couple of hours to get out of suburbia, past the Urban Growth Boundary to finally reach farmland. We stopped for second breakfast in Banks before getting on the Banks-Vernonia State Trail.
The Banks-Vernonia State Trail runs south to north through the Coast Range, oddly enough from Banks to Vernonia. It is 21 miles long and fully paved. There were a good number of people using the trail since it was such a beautiful weekend, but still pleasant to ride. The climbing was easy, and the trail is almost completely in forests. It reminded me of riding the Great Alleghany Passage through Maryland so many weeks ago.
Our destination for the night was a Warm Showers Host called Simple Roots. It is an off-grid, 10 acre farmstead where Liz Vogel and Austin Baillie live with Liz's son and a couple of dogs. They moved there a few years ago and built cabin where John and I stayed.
While they lived in it they built a second home further up the hill made of cob, a building material they made from subsoil, straw, and sand. They called it a mud hut in their Warm Showers profile, but honestly reminded me more of a hobbit home in The Shire, both inside and out. While they were building it a local artist created sculptures in the cob.
Liz and Austin are mostly self-sufficient now. They say living there is really no different than having a job. In fact, Liz thinks now that they have completed all the large projects on their farmstead they have more time than they would if they worked for someone for 40 hours every week.
What I enjoyed most about them was how grounded in reality they are. They are living sustainably, but they are not environmental extremists. They believe it is ok to use plastic, but not too much plastic. It is ok to heat water with propane, but not too much. They have an internal concussion engine vehicle, but they rarely use it, choosing to bike to town instead. We could learn a lot from them.
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