Week 1 Portland to Walla Walla, WA

The first week of the trip has been a mix of excitement and challenge.
We'll tell you the challenges first, so you can be assured that the good stuff is far outweighing it...
The first challenge has been equipment related: the weight on our back wheels has been too much for our bicycles to handle, so we had to do some scrambling to locate a trailer for Anna and new wheels for Matt (achieved!). The other challenges have been the heat, the wind and the irrigation. The heat and the wind, when combined and in our faces, was pretty awful, and made us stop on Wednesday after only 40 miles. The irrigation sprinklers at the campgrounds have either woken us up early or kept us up late when we heard the spray coming across the tent!

It has been incredibly exciting to ride through diverse landscapes as we've followed the Columbia River: from lush green and waterfalls near Portland, to steep-sided cliffs past Hood River, to the flat, dry farmland and rolling hills. It has also been exciting to learn about the history of the area. The Native people have used the Columbia (and continue to do so, though much has changed because of the dams) for its rich fisheries for thousands of years. Lewis and Clark would never have made it out to Astoria without their help through the rapids, trading for horses and food. The creation of the dams regulated the flooding and created a network of farms along the banks that benefit from the fertile soil. We pedaled past acres and acres of river-irrigated grapes, peaches, cherries, pears and apricots. The fruit stands were a great end to a hot day!

Meeting people has also been exciting, and we have been the recipients of much kindness over the past four days. We got a ride over the cars-only bridge in Hood River from Pat, which took us off I-84 and onto much quieter roads on the Washington side. Another important ride came from George in West Roosevelt, WA- he picked us up in his postal van and drove us 50 miles after an incredibly hot day. The folks at Albertson's (a big chain grocery store) ushered us into their air conditioned oasis along with our bicycles to give us directions. When we arrived in Walla-Walla, Tim and Reggie fixed up our bicycles, gave us a place to camp (Pete and Vickie's house, which is on a beautiful 1890's homestead in the middle of the wheatfields outside of town) and volunteered to send some of our stuff home so we wouldn't have to haul it to the post office. The next bike shop (Allegro Cycles) was another amazing stop- Matt got his wheels put on by Justin, who was one of the people who assembled the Sommo bicycles when we did our cross-country trip from Anacortes, WA in 1996! Incredible and special coincidence.

Now we are relaxing in Walla, Walla for the day- hoping to get a taste of some Walla-Walla sweet onions. From here we head up into the mountains of Idaho (we should be in Lewiston by Sunday) and probably to Missoula, MT in a week or so. We'll do our next update from there. If you want to check out some photos of the past few days, click this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27960603@N04/sets/72157605972483272/

Big love from the bikes!

Anna and Matt