Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Day 2 St Helens to Welches

Day 2 started out clear and brisk. The temps were in the upper 50’s, and there was a fresh breeze from the NW. We had a really flat morning, and made good speed down to the outskirts of Portland. The first big adventure was to cross the Columbia River on an older bridge. The only path for cyclists was a walkway along the rail. It was not too bad by itself, but at the towers, the sidewalk circled around the huge columns to the outside, and there was not a lot of extra room. I managed the first without putting my foot down, but chose to at least unclip my shoe for the second one, just in case. I made it without undue difficulty.

The first SAG for the day was at a nice park in North Portland, and I had my usual banana and granola bar. I don’t hang around the stops for very long, for I have learned the value of short, quick stops from my randonneuring rides. We next left the roads for a bike trail, except the trail kept feeding back out to the roads for brief distances. The trail finally ended east of Portland’s smaller airport. (we had already passed Portland International) We headed South, and uphill from the Columbia toward the town of Welches, near Mt. Hood. I mainly rode with Sara, who has the distinction of keeping the best blog, and Mike, who also rides a recumbent. Along the way some of us stopped at a hamburger place called Calamity Jane’s. I had a huge “pizza burger” that was so big, I couldn’t even come close to finishing it. After lunch, we quickly made it to the Resort at the Mountain on the foothills of Mt Hood. I lost about 200 pictures that covered the stretch from the bike trail to Calamity Jane’s, but the rest turned out. The GPS worked well.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant near the resort, and then turned in for an early start.



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