Day 2: Have you ever forgotten to act your age?

After a nice long swim in the Indian Brook Reservoir we headed to the airport. Lisa volunteered to take us... great. Oh wait, we have two bike boxes and three humans. Where would the third person sit? “I know!” Todd said, “I’ll just slip in here behind the front seat," pointing to the 18-inch foot space. Lisa, being a good law-abiding driver, was clearly aware that it was against the law to travel without a seat belt, but she relented after she saw that her Papi would not change his mind and watched as he contorted his body to fit in the small space.

The airport process was smooth, although I was very nervous when the TSA man said they would need to take everything out of the boxes. And Todd was nervous when the woman checking in the boxes said we might have to pay more if we packed anything but bikes in the boxes. Given we packed most everything we needed for the trip in there in order to pad the bikes and avoid extra baggage fees, we thought we’d be paying big bucks. But alas, she gave us a break. Must have been our eager smiles. In the end, the TSA man opened our boxes, looked in and decided it wasn’t worth the effort! Phew.

We landed in Portland at midnight. Todd had read up on how great it was to sleep in the Portland airport so we decided not to pay $100 for a hotel bed we would end up sleeping in for just a few hours. Better to save that for the many calories we would nneed as fuel for the journney. When we got off the plan we immediately set about looking for the perfect place to set up “camp.” And we found it near a far baggage claim, behind a computer station.








We woke up at 4:00 Pacific time to the carpet cleaners zooming all around us. But, no worries, we were ready to get up and put our bikes together at the always handy airport bike assembly station! After a few hours of low blood sugar bike assembly delerium, fueled by the smell of Phil’s bike grease, we set off out of the airport... straight onto a bike path.

If you love to ride your bike, this is already a trip worth doing. You can ride right from the airport 11.2 miles to downtown Portland on a bike path and marked bike lanes. We stopped along the way to gorge on blackberries that lined the otherwise derelict bike path. We carried on through bungalow neighborhoods and began to think about our first cup of coffee. We kept our eyes peeled for any sign of hipsters. And we found our first hip and friendly person outside a very relaxed but busy cofffee shop. Here she is with her little dog.



She could have talked for hours about all the great things to do in Oregon, but we had coffee to drink, so we went inside. When I asked the owner if he had any gluten free options, he jumped out from behind the counter to talk to me and show what he had. Yummy stuff. We sat next to a young man named Eben, from Maine, who was studying at University of Oregon who directed us to Whole Foods and the coolest bike shops.

Outside, a man pulled up on his bike and asked where we were headed then offered us a map of the city and told us to stop by his office down in City Hall to get more free maps. Yippeeee! People here sure are friendly.

Only a few blocks away we found City Bikes, a great non profit cooperative. Fun and funky shop that was filled with used parts. Todd was soon rooting through bins and boxes and came up with a set of toe clips, a pair of clip covers, and a swatch of spare Mr. Tuffy to boot.. "$6 for the pile" offered the helpful coop store clerk. Yes! We like Portland.














We carried on to the Esplenade, finely featured in the first episode of "Portlandia", with its widely paved path running on both sides of the Willamette River. We got a great view of the city and its citizens. From there we made our way up into the city and found bike lanes to die for! Some right down the middle of the road!



It felt so weird to be “hogging” up the road, but just amazing to ride through a city with such a buffer surrounding you... a far cry from my commute to Winooski. We had a beautiful picnic lunch and headed down to City Hall to pick up the maps and see the famous statuto of Portlandia. Wow.. It was huge and powerful. The literature explained that it is the second biggest of its kind after the Statue of Liberty.


We took in a bunch more simple sights. We could have stayed all day, but were eager to ride our bikes and get a move on out of the city and to our first destination: Hillsboro. The route led us up into Washington Park -- a steep and windy road that leads to the International Rose Garden and the Zoo. We hit the Rose Garden at peak season. Oh my goodness. You would have to be half a very hardened human not to be deeply moved by the beauty of this place. Acres of roses, of all description - scent, color, size. Wow.












The road was sweet and wound it’s way up through huge pine. After we got to the top, we basically cruised all the way down to Hillsboro.

In Hillsboro, through a sleep deprived stupor I had the best Gluten free pizza ever - sauteed asparagus, artichoke hearts, peppers, feta.

Our host met us in town on his bike to lead us back to his house. Walter and Nora greeted us. Walter is a Dutch American and told us all about the Dutch bikes. They are very cool, with built in bike locks and complete chain guards.

Our stay with them was lovely. Their house was filled with color and we smiled big smiles as we sunk into the big cushy bed. Check out their colorful kitchen:



Thank you Nora and Walter!