At Boring, we started riding a series of small roads and highways the approximately 20 miles or so to Estacada, the trailhead for the Cascading Rivers Bikeway (CRB). This ride was through rolling farmland and past strawberry fruit stands and Christmas tree farms. Lots of wild flowers. The temps were in the 50-60 degree range and quite overcast. A few sprinkles here and there, but no major rain at this point.
In Estacada, we stopped at Subway for lunch (thanks Sassy and Morris for the gift card), then visited a local grocery store to get a few items for dinner since we were camping out. Then hit the CRB - a beautiful ride through lush green areas running alongside the rushing river. This is one of the delights I remember previously from riiding through Oregon in 2012. At certain points, the water in the stream/river swirled and flowed emerald green. Lots of old logs lodged at various places where it appeared they must have been headed for lumber mills. Another striking feature of the ride was the lack of traffic. We pretty much had the road to ourselves and, in fact, at one point the road was closed off to motorized traffic.
Alas, along the way, our luck ran out and we encountered a short-lived downpour. Came up too quickly before I could get the rain gear on, so I was pretty soaked. Then cleared up for a while, then rained again. By then I had on the rain gear, which merely trapped the soaked clothing underneath. Lesson learned - just assume rain in Oregon and wear the rain gear to start with.
We finally pulled in to the Ripplebrook Camp ground late in the afternoon, a beautiful heavily treed fairly primitive campground. Set up our tents in spitting rain, then changed into dry clothes and took a quick nap before dinner. Randy pulled out his portable camp stove, and I had a freeze dried pasta primavera dinner from REI with broccoli salad I had picked up from the store in Estacada. Topped off with a Grandma's oatmeal raisin cookie and via coffee. Quite a nice meal. Randy had his own Uncle Ben's concoction. As we finished up, it was beginning to lightly rain. We quickly cleaned up and retreated to our tents for the night.
I obsessed throughout the night about possible deluges that would soak through the tent, and the fact that it was cold. Knew that my bike shoes were soaked and my feet would be wet and cold to start the next day. However, all in all, was quite cozy and comfy. No phone service or wi-fi, and because of the cold and wet I was not inclined to pull out the iPad. So did the next best thing and went to sleep at 8:00 pm. Planning more appropriate clothes for tomorrow.
For those riding with us for the first time, thought you might wonder how Randy and I came to do this ride together. I met Randy at the start of the 3rd week of my Transamerica ride in 2012. He lives in Tuscon AZ and was riding with 2 other friends from Arizona. As often happens on these kind of adventures, you meet others on the route and sometimes ride together for a while. In this case, Randy and I found that we were compatible biking partners and ended up riding together for almost 10 weeks to complete the Transamerica ride. We have stayed in touch since, and even did another ride in 2013 from Minneapolis to Bar Harbor, MA. This northwest ride arose out of our common appreciation for Oregon and the northwest, and a desire to ride the Jasper/Banff to Vancouver ride. Plus, I guess it is fair to say we are touring biking junkies at this point.
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