Oregon - We like the people, but not the weather

Distance cycled to date: 2439 km

Flat tires to date: 8 (Jeff - 4, Keenan - 4)

Pictures taken to date: 1595

Home-cooked meals eaten in Oregon: 7

We can now check another state off the list.  We made it to California!  Finally.  There were 3 or 4 days where we were sure we'd make it past the border, but something always came up.  However, the weather finally died down, and we jumped on the opportunity and made our escape into sunny California - only to find that it's not so sunny.  

We had a great time in Oregon.  Even with the terrible weather, it's pretty surprising that we got through that whole state already.  It seemed like we spent all our time just hanging out at people's houses and hardly biking at all.  When we finally did get on the road, we spent our days biking along the beautiful coastline, and found ourselves repeatedly telling each other how beautiful it would be if it weren't so foggy/windy/rainy.  Although we seem to complain about the weather a lot, we have to admit we did have a few sunny days - one and a half riding days, and we took full advantage of them, drying out everything, and taking more than enough pictures to make up for the days we couldn't take out the camera.  

We've got many good memories from Oregon - most of them aren't even bicycle related.  From hiding from the weather in Cannon Beach in public restrooms where we spent the afternoon with fellow cyclists, to a beautiful hike to Cape Lookout on one of our sunny days, to a final hike down to Cape Sebastion before leaving the state, where we were able to see the full power of the sea against the rocks after the storm.  We met a lot of great people, and had a lot of fun.  

Now that we're in California, we're getting more and more excited about reaching warmer weather and hopefully even getting some sunshine!  Despite thinking that we left the fall and winter behind, we've realized that it's very difficult to get a tan in the Pacific Northwest.  We're ready for some sun (we're ready to dry out our shoes).  And we're very excited about all the new varieties of fast food chains that we're hoping to come across.  We've made decent progress so far - we're not really ahead of schedule, but definitely not behind schedule either.  We're just trucking along, plugging away...  all that kind of stuff.  

Two states down, one very big one to go.  Not to mention all those other countries below.  

By the way - feel free to email us at jeffandkeenan@rideforhope.ca.  We really do enjoy hearing back from everybody.  Anybody.  We get to check our email maybe more often than you'd guess, and we very rarely have anything in our inbox.  Don't be shy to send us an email, or even a comment.  

As we always do when we leave a place, we updated our photo album.  Take a look - we think we did alright this time.  Even with all that bad weather, Oregon's still a pretty beautiful place.