Corvallis

[snousle]

Wow, it sure took a long time to get here. Like, ten years or so.

I'm currently chez twobraids where I had intended a short stop followed by lunch in Eugene. But it turns out to be very difficult to leave this place. sig_info dropped by, and this short stop turned into a long, languorous afternoon lounging by the river, then into dinner and an overnight stay. If I were going back to San Jose rather than our forest home in Ukiah, I think he would have a very difficult time getting me to leave at all.

I'm not sure how it came to be that I made so many trips through Oregon without having ever met Lars or seeing his delightful hippie agro-techno utopia here. Maybe things happen when you are ready for them, or when the lesser distractions of the world have lost their undeserved fascination.

Anyway, I'm going to try to make a run for it back to Ukiah tomorrow, 500 miles in one day. I think I can do it if I get out at the crack of dawn.

Quite a lot happens on these trips, more than I can keep up with in journaling. The Border Riders run was extremely pleasant despite the rain - it almost always rains on their runs, it seems to be part of the package. Fort Stevens is quite beautiful, and the constant 60 degree temperature, uniformly white skies, and soft mossy forest made camping there a gentle, tender experience. There's lots of short-distance riding to do just around the peninsula, just a few miles here and there, but plenty of nice spots to stop and admire the ocean or the river. The rainforest and dunes - and the bizarre piney transition forest between them - are full of exotic flowers and tasty salmonberries. I took a fellow biker from Sacramento deep into these pines for a detailed study of, um... well, you know, natural stuff, like pollination, and things like that. Later we made a detailed examination of the showers the state park thoughtfully provides for campers, complete with locking doors. ;-)

Smoked oysters and cream cheese on bagels from a local Astoria smokehouse was especially wonderful, but perhaps the kind of thing only an otter can love. Eating on the coast seems to have improved tremendously in the past ten years, but maybe it's only my prowess in finding the right places to go.

Last night, I spent with bbearseviltwin who I had not met previously, and this morning enjoyed breakfast with an old friend in Portland who, ironically, was also in Astoria on Friday night but didn't know that the run was going on. Oh well!

I must make a plug for the Cadillac Cafe in Portland, which serves up some spectacularly good food. Would you believe the one thing that impressed me most was their scrambled eggs? Sometimes it's the simple, unglamorous dishes that really show off the skills of a chef, and these eggs were to die for. The egg offers a whole world of fascinating and delicate textures that can only be teased out with the most precise, careful treatment. I was humbled by this one egg, served on the side of a plate of delicious hazelnut french toast that I imagine to have been furious at being upstaged like that. It appears to have been cooked (barely) in a paper-thin sheet in a very large pan, then wadded up like a crumpled bedsheet just as it set. I hate to think how much butter was involved.

I find myself much more at peace than I've been in a very long time, perhaps ever. The noise in my head has miraculously ceased, and filling that space is the most tender affections of friends both old and new. I find that people are touching me in a deep way, and men that once seemed distant and unreachable are suddenly very close and intimate. These road trips make me wildly horny (can you tell?) but I've been very happy with these quiet times in lieu of anything particularly hot and heavy. I'm thinking that leaving the city was a really, really good idea.

Comments

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

you never know what is going to happen do you? glad you had a good time on the trip. It was great to have you here. I wish I had been able to have the eggs and french toast :)