Hillsboro, OR to Portland, OR
Our final ride day!! We were led into the city by Barbara, an alumni and member of the Portland Illinois Alumni group. She took us first to the Nike campus, just outside the city, where two riders, Dan and Christa got the last two flats of the trip, but once they quickly changed their tubes, we entered the facility and began the tour. The Nike campus was really beautiful and we got to see parking spots reserved for Tiger Woods, Gary Peyton, and others, along with a beautiful running track, the Lance Armstrong Center, a really cool reflecting pond, and amazing soccer fields which really made me want to play again. After that, we headed to the famous Washington Park and visited the renowned Rose Garden, which overlooked Portland, and then finally headed into the city. We got to Overlook Park, where our supporters were waiting to welcome us in, and everyone was really excited to see my mom, and it was very exciting in general. The alumni put on a great picnic for us, and we ate tons of food, took lots of pictures, did some of the more memorable cheers and games which we have been doing on this trip. Afterwards, we headed to our stayover and headed into the city for the night. Portland is known for its microbrews, so we went to Deschutes, where I had a really good lamb burger for dinner, then we went to Rogue Brewery, had some of the famous doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnuts (the banana fritter was amazing), and then visited the Thirsty Lion before heading home for the night.
The next day, we had a hospital visit where we got to tour the Portland Cancer Center and then headed into the city for lunch with my family. We went to Powells, the huge bookstore in Portland, and managed to restrain myself to buying only three books while I was there, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. We also visited a local thrift shop where I got yet another unnecessary t-shirt for my huge collection, and then had some delicious Chinese food for dinner from Hunan. And that was it, I broke my bike down and left Portland Tuesday!
Somehow, no one bothered to check our flight out of Portland, so we got to the airport at 6:45AM and found out that it had been canceled. That was pretty frustrating, but we didn't really have a rush, and we would have to take a flight that left 5 hours later and had a stopover in Atlanta. However, I got some great reading done, I finished The Road, and bought one last book(Better by Atul Gawande) from the Powells in the airport, and finished that too. The people at Delta were very helpful in organizing a new flight for us free of charge and Christa, Matt Harlan, and I eventually made it home around 9PM, and I was able to sleep in my own bed for as long as I wanted, which felt great!!
States traveled through:19(NY,NJ,PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR)
Distance today: 27 mi
Total Distance traveled: 4072 mi