What a jam-packed time I have been having in Portland! I’ve now been here for three and a half weeks. And, I learned from my dentist today that I might be able to finish up my needed dental work within about the next month.
This means that although I’ll be leaving Portland for Salem on the train this Wednesday—day after tomorrow—I probably won’t be going all the way to California yet, as I had originally planned. Although I would love to keep this lovely warm weather going for another month by heading for points south, I don’t think it’s worth the expense and effort of train travel beyond Oregon right now, if I would need to come back in a month anyway.
So, I’ll spend a few days in Salem, then a few days in Eugene, and then see what else I’d like to do in Oregon. More time in Eugene? A jog over to Corvallis? Salem again? More Portland time? We’ll see! (And if any of you know of any possible house/cat sitting possibilities in any of these places in the next month, please feel free to pass them along!)
Meanwhile, I’ve been loving caring for another adorable kitty, Killian, for the past four days, just down the street from my condo in southeast Portland.
My social calendar has been packed, and I’ve also made it to many beautiful parks, including the Tsuru Island Japanese Garden in Gresham, and the Milwaukie Bay Park, right along the Willamette.
And I still can’t believe how gorgeous the weather continues to be!
I also enjoyed attending a Servas meetup in my (very) old stomping grounds of Hillsdale yesterday, in southwest Portland. I met a number of local Servas hosts and travelers. I have so enjoyed connecting with Servas people this past year, and I look forward to doing more of it in the coming year.
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I got to visit there yesterday. The place is so legendary. I make an effort to go at least once a year. It is considered by many to be the best Japanese garden in the world, outside of Japan. Having visited probably three to four dozen other Japanese gardens around the US and Canada, I have to agree with that assessment. It is absolutely mesmerizing, especially at this time of year.
I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
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Wow. It’s been more than two weeks already that I’ve been back here. It has been a jam-packed time so far, and the next week (my last week here, at least for a bit) promises to be the same. So unfortunately, I don’t have time to write much here—I need my sleep!—but I wanted to check in and share some photos.
I have found it much less surreal than I had imagined to be back. Everywhere I go, places seem so familiar that I feel like I’ve barely been gone at all. It feels like, “oh yeah, this place—I think I was here last week…?”
Surprising, but cool.
The weather has been spectacular. We’ve had two coolish and drizzly days, but all other days so far have had highs in the 70s and 80s, with warm sunshine. (Some people here are freaking out about global warming, but my recollection from my 31 years here is that the first two weeks of October always tends to be warm and dry, albeit usually less than 80. The second half of the month is when it gets much cooler and rainier.) I am racing that western-Oregon clock! After my time here in Portland, I plan to spend a few days each in Salem and Eugene; it will be a miracle for me if it’s not cool and rainy by the time I get there.
I have seen sooooo many people since I’ve returned! I haven’t taken too many photos/selfies with folks, so if I’ve spent time with you and your photo isn’t here, please don’t be hurt. But it’s been wonderful to see so many friends in person, and also to have the downtime (thanks to a wonderful house-/cat-sit for my friend Sandi) to do several Zooms with others all around the world.
The other day, I was sitting at a picnic table in the park across the street from my house-sit, when I saw a woman with a bike helmet out of the corner of my eye. As she approached, I heard her say, “Is that the world-traveling Maren Souders??” It was Jeana!! We had worked together in the OSPIRG canvass office, 30 summers ago! I hadn’t seen her in person in quite a few years.It was great to catch up with Laurie over brunch!
These kinds of connections—in-person and virtual—are a big part of what I want my life to be about, so although it’s a bit overwhelming, I am loving it.
And there has been so much magic in these connections! Once again—as happened so many times on the road this past year—I have had many connections with people who are only here very briefly, as am I. We are like two ships almost passing in the night… but we do get to connect. This has been the case with several different people these past two weeks.
I’ve also bicycled a lot, in beautiful urban as well as wooded places. I have attended a number of doctor/dentist appointments, in various suburban locales, and doing so has allowed me the opportunity to take some beautiful bike rides.
And I’ve eaten so much delicious food! Many friends have treated me to meals (thank you all!) and I’ve gotten to experience some new-to-me restaurants as well as old favorites. Meanwhile, it’s been a blessing to have access to a kitchen and enough time to buy some healthy groceries and make some simple meals for myself.
Mis Tacones!
On the flip side of that, I will end with yet another example of magic, from today:
I had a dental appointment down south in Oak Grove, on the southern edge of Milwaukie. I took the bus down there (and even went all the way through Oregon City on the way there, going by Google’s transit directions) and then hopped back on a bus to the Milwaukie transit center afterward. From there, I decided to have lunch at Uncle Tsang’s, a vegetarian food cart in Sellwood. (My second visit there since being back!) I decided to bicycle there from Milwaukie, to enjoy the beautiful day.
On the way to the cart pod, I passed Piece of Cake bakery. This is a classic Portland bakery (since 1978!) and they make the most amazing vegan red velvet cake I’ve ever had. I normally get it in cupcake form. It’s rich and dense and sweet, and even contains chocolate chips!
The problem is, both today and the last time I passed it on the way back from the dentist (let’s ignore any irony about eating sweets right after the dentist, shall we?) I was on my way to lunch, and I knew that the lunch at Uncle Tsang’s would be way too filling to allow room for dessert, especially a decadent one like this. And it’s awkward to carry things with me when I’m out on my bike, especially on a hot day when a cupcake might melt.
So in both cases, I very reluctantly decided to forgo the cupcake.
I pedaled over to the cart pod. I surveyed the extensive menu, and made my selection. (Eggplant with black bean sauce, add tofu.) They told me it would be a 30-minute wait. This felt a bit edgy for me, because I had somewhere to be in about an hour and a half, and it would take me at least half an hour to get there. But I decided to go for it.
No sooner had I turned around to find a table where I could sit and wait, than I saw my friend Jarmila! She was there with a friend of hers, and they had just ordered from a different cart. We talked for the next half-hour, catching up on each other’s lives.
Another case of wonderful serendipity.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
I texted my next friend, Chris, that I was running late, and he replied that my timing was perfect.
Nice!
I finished up my meal, and headed north on another beautiful bike path.
I arrived at Chris’s place just at the right time, and he and his girlfriend showed me the ropes of how I would cat-sit for their kitty Killian in a few days.
Then it was time to meet up with my friend Brad. I had run into Brad at brunch yesterday at local vegan hotspot Fermenter—he had been dining with our mutual friends Vivek and Lynn, and I was sharing the meal with my extreme-cyclist-OMG-I-can’t-believe-the-tours-he-does friend Michael—and Brad had told me then that he’d like to meet up for coffee to help brainstorm some fundraising ideas for me for the next year, since he is a freelance grant writer.
Awesome!
So this afternoon, after getting the key from Chris, I biked down to meet up with Brad at a frozen-yogurt place, Eb & Bean, that has great vegan options. As soon as I pulled up, he told me he had a little gift for me.
As we sat down, he handed over a paper bag containing the treasure, which he cautioned me not to eat all at once, because it was outrageously rich and might make me sick.
Do you know what it was?
That’s right. A slice of Piece of Cake’s vegan red velvet. (He had had no idea of my history with this particular confection.)
If that doesn’t symbolize my life right now, I don’t know what does.
I’m so grateful.
And I’ve ended up writing a novella here again, despite my best intentions.
I’m going to sleep now! I hope you all are thriving!
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Hello, all! I’ve been enjoying my downtime in Portland these past few days: connecting with friends, eating some old favorite foods, biking and taking transit around to appointments, while also enjoying new adventures (such as discovering the 10-year-old Trolley Trail for the first time today—the paved, car-free path goes all the way from Milwaukie to Gladstone!)
I’ll write more in a bit, but I wanted check in today to share a cool interview I was honored to take part in for the 10Adventures podcast. 10Adventures is a Canadian travel company offering a wide variety of excursion packages for people seeking human-powered travel experiences, whether biking, hiking, or boating.
I’m very happy with the interview, and my host Karin and I ended up “going deeper” than I had expected, in what I had initially assumed would be a mostly athletic-and-outdoorsy-focused conversation.
One caveat: I’m kind of embarrassed at how my voice/demeanor sounds at the beginning. Karin sounds very excited and upbeat, and by contrast, I was chagrined to notice that my own voice made me sound rather bored/boring! I hope you’ll see (listen?) past that to enjoy the content of what we discussed. It was really cool for me to have the opportunity to sum up some of my experiences and learnings of the past year. Please click through to this link; I hope you’ll enjoy hearing it as well:
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Yesterday actually didn’t feel as weird to me as I had thought it might. I think I’m really getting the hang of this “living in the moment” thing, and that meant that yesterday on the train I just kind of thought, “Oh yeah, I’ve taken this trip many times. There’s that place… there’s that place…” And when we pulled into Portland, everything just looked familiar, in an everyday kind of way.
I liked it.
Meanwhile, I had struck up a conversation with an interesting elder English fellow, Tony, at the Seattle train station. We talked about my rig, and about travel in general, the UK, the US, etc.
When we arrived in Portland, I encouraged him to save some money on cab fare by taking the MAX light rail, since his hotel was a quick and easy jaunt across the river. I walked him over to the light rail station, showed him how to get a ticket (and when he had trouble with his credit card in the machine, a fellow passenger standing nearby pointed out a free one in the machine that somehow someone had left—talk about magic!) and watched him board the yellow line train. He was very appreciative, and I felt really great about having helped a Portland visitor with my local transit knowledge that had remained intact for the previous year.
UNTIL!
I biked over to the nearby REI to replace the now-disgusting bite valve on my hydration pack, then biked back to that MAX stop to catch my own yellow line train. It was only after the train crossed the bridge that I suddenly remembered that the yellow line veers north one stop before the Convention Center, which is where Tony had needed to disembark.
Yikes!!
(Tony, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry, and I hope you, um, enjoyed your Portland transit adventure! Guess my memory wasn’t as watertight as I had thought…)
I grimaced a moment, then chose to trust that Tony would be fine, and allowed myself to focus on arriving at my friend Sandi’s house.
That had been a last-minute plot twist: about halfway through my train ride, my friend Sarah, who was to have hosted me with her husband for my first night or two in outer SE Portland, messaged me to let me know she had the flu, so they wouldn’t be able to have me after all.
Wow. Last-minute pivot! But I was very glad she had protected her own health as well as mine by letting me know. (Sarah, if you’re reading this, I hope you heal up soon, and I hope to see you and Frank while I’m here!)
But Sandi, whose cat I will be caring for while she’s gone for a little while, was gracious in allowing me to stay at her place last night, even though she was scrambling to clean and do various urgent tasks before leaving for her own travels. (Thank you again, Sandi!)
We got an early dinner at the nearby New Seasons, and then turned in early last night, since we were both a bit short on sleep.
For the next few nights I’ll be staying with my friend Greg in SE, back near my own place. (I’m not sure if I’ll go by my place—it might feel weird to see it when I don’t live there, and someone else does!) Then I’ll be back with Sandi and her cat for a couple of weeks.
I’ve got lots of people to see, several new restaurants to try and old favorites to revisit, a few parks to hang out in, and hopefully some just plain downtime, some Zoom time with people all over who I haven’t been able to schedule time with yet… and various other things to fill my time here in Portland. I probably won’t be blogging every day here, but I’ll plan to check in every few days.
Please enjoy these pics of Seattle transit infrastructure, my Amtrak journey, and the iconic Portland Union Station once again.
I’m glad to be here.
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Well, as it turned out, I only biked 14 miles today—not the 27 I had thought—although there were definitely some challenging hills in there, especially on the two-mile stretch coming off the ferry into Mukilteo.
This morning, I said farewell to my Whidbey Island Warmshowers hosts Michael and Debbie (hi, you two, if you’re reading!) and glided down the quarter-mile or so to the ferry dock beneath their living room window. As the ferry set sail, I got a text from them that they could see me with my bright trailer on the dock!
The sailing was brief, and then I began my ascent, with several stops to rest.
Today’s cycling was much less visually pleasant than that of the past week or so. I was on a busy highway for about the first ten miles. I stopped for lunch in Lynnwood at a Taco Del Mar, much to my delight since the Seattle-based chain closed all their Portland-area locations some years ago. I had almost forgotten that the place existed, but I used to eat there at least once a week for probably at least ten years, maybe more like twenty! It was fun to reminisce over my spinach-tortilla-wrapped burrito.
Afterward, I got back out onto the busy thoroughfare filled with construction, inwardly groaning that this was the condition of my ride today. Luckily, within a few blocks, I reached the Interurban Trail, a car-free bike-and-ped path that leads much of the way into Seattle. Finally, a pleasant off-road trail!
Sadly, my relief was quickly foiled: after crossing a single overpass, I was met with detour signs pointing me back into unpleasant traffic conditions on surface streets. I wasn’t exactly sure how to navigate the signs, and I wondered when—or even if—I would be able to rejoin the trail. I was already tired of this kind of cycling, and feeling cranky.
But then I looked up, and what should my weary eyes behold but the Lynnwood Transit Center! I wondered if I could hop a bus to take me closer to town.
But then I quickly remembered that I generally cannot fit my rig onto city buses, especially in the afternoon (it was about 3:00) when they might be filling for rush hour. Furthermore, I thought I remembered that in Portland you can’t pay bus fare by cash. Might that be the case here as well? How could I buy a ticket?
However, the situation seemed worth investigating.
Lo and behold, upon closer inspection I found schedules for three express buses bound for Northgate Center, just a bit more than three miles away from my destination!
One of those buses pulled up just then. I asked the driver if I could board with my rig. He looked at it and frowned, and said no.
Argh.
But I had pretty much expected that; I knew it was a long shot.
Time to rethink. I was sure there must be a bikeable way to get the 13 remaining miles to my sister and her partner’s house.
But then I changed my mind again: why not try again for a bus? There were three heading my direction. I took apart my rig, turning the trailer into a pushcart like I do to board Amtrak trains, and folding the bike into its neat, small package.
Then I asked the people standing at the bus stop what the fare was, and how to pay it. They told me it was about $3, and that I could pay by cash.
Wow!
Luckily, I had recently replenished my (very lean) cash stock just a day or two ago, so I had three ones on me.
And just then, another bus pulled up. This driver replied that it would be OK! (I was so glad I had transformed the rig into its transit-ready form, before giving up on this possibility.)
The fare turned out to be $3.25, so I dug out an extra quarter, and after I maneuvered everything through the door and around the corner, we were off!
This express bus ride—only one stop between Lynnwood and Northgate—saved me ten miles, and about 250 feet of climbing.
I appreciated that very much as I disembarked and reassembled everything, because I knew that those last three miles would include about another 200 feet of hills. (This is Seattle, after all.)
After huffing my way up those hills, I enjoyed a nice home-cooked dinner with my hosts, followed by more conversation.
And… wow. This is the last night of my geographic loop. Tomorrow, I will board the train back to Portland. I haven’t set foot in that city—my home from September1990 through September 2021—for a year now. I’m curious how I’ll feel re-entering it, even though I’ll only be staying for about three weeks before heading south again to continue my adventures.
I guess I’ll take it all a day at a time, just like the past year.
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It started with a string of coincidences that led me to meeting up with my friend Denise at the Port Townsend ferry to Whidbey Island. It was amazing enough that we were both visiting Port Townsend at the same time… but then we ended up getting on the same ferry, despite her being told when she drove up that it would be a four-to-five-hour wait until she could board a ferry!
We chatted a bit on the 30-minute boat ride, and then afterward we scrunched around the many items in her car so that she could give me and my rig a ride, about seven miles and 250 feet of elevation into the island! I was very grateful, despite my sardine-like riding conditions.
We stopped in the small town of Greenbank for lunch, catching up on our lives and reminiscing about mutual friends. She was heading north to Orcas Island afterward, and I was able to give her the name of the Indralaya camp that my seatmate on the Seattle-to-Bellingham bus had told me about a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, I contacted our mutual friends Frank and Sarah to see about staying with them for a couple of days upon my arrival in Portland. It was a perfect situation, because Denise has been living with them, and told me I could stay in her room!
I love all these serendipities.
After we parted ways, I continued by bike down the island’s main road, with about 17 miles left to reach my Warmshowers hosts in Clinton, right near the dock where I will catch the ferry tomorrow morning on my way to Seattle. (Their backyard literally overlooks the ferry dock.)
On my way, I made a point to stop at two parks, including a privately maintained one ($7 admission) called Earth Sanctuary. If you ever find yourself on Whidbey Island, I recommend visiting this place. There were many more wooded trails than I had time to explore, but I spent about an hour hiking the “Celestial trail” and it was just beautiful. And I didn’t see another bike, car, nor person during my entire time there.
On the way from the parking area to the wooded trails, I found many patches of this region’s ubiquitous blackberries, bursting with the bounty of the season. I feasted.
There were also several artistic touches on the way to the trails, including two large bells. I realized, with a slow smile, that I must have been gone from my party-store job for long enough now—more than a year—to have been able to react to seeing these by thinking, “Wow, look at that beautiful bell. I’m going to take the mallet and play some tones.” During my 18-year tenure at that job (part of which involved my maintaining the store’s extensive rental helium-tank inventory, some of which occasionally got stolen or lost) my first thought would have been, “That better not be one of our tanks!!”
In all, I probably biked about twenty miles today, including close to a thousand feet of climbing. I’m out of practice with hills, having been in the Midwest so long. I was definitely ready for a rest by the time I arrived at Debbie and Michael’s place.
We sat and enjoyed a long chat over dinner and snacks, while watching the sun set over the water, and the ferries come and go at half-hour intervals.
Tomorrow, on my way to Seattle, I’ll bike about 27 more miles, and climb at least another 1000 feet, if Google Maps is to be believed.
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Wow, it’s been a while since I did so much climbing! And I feel silly saying so, because it was only a total of 20 miles of riding, with 554 feet of elevation gain! Tomorrow I’ve got 27 miles to do, with twice that much elevation. Then a similar day the next day. Oof… at least the scenery is beautiful.
I said goodbye to my host Lillian and her cat George this morning, and pedaled down the hill to the Olympic Discovery Trail, heading east toward Sequim. (If you’re not from this region, you may not have known that the E is silent in that town’s name; if so, now you do!)
The trail was beautiful, along the ocean, for the first few miles.
Then it turned inland, and was beautiful in a more wooded way. Such gorgeous forests in this part of the world.
Some of those inclines on either side of various creeks, though, were pretty brutal with 16” wheels and a 72-pound trailer. I walked up a couple of hills today.
Sadly, the rail bridge along the trail was closed for repairs. Finding signage for a detour was pretty much impossible, but I used Google Maps and asked a local, and made my way. One unexpected bonus from the detour: encountering a pair of emus in someone’s yard! I was definitely not expecting that. I spent some time chatting with them, and admiring their amazing plumage.
Then I got onto Highway 101, which was pretty unpleasant. I had to wait about five minutes at the intersection (with a car behind me) to make the left turn onto the busy thoroughfare, and then riding on the (thankfully wide) shoulder was not very pleasant, especially after all the quiet scenery earlier in the ride.
Eventually I made it to Sequim, and stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Then I made my way over to the cute little transit center, and waited to board my bus to Port Townsend. The bus saved me an additional 31 miles and 1,263 more feet of climbing, and amazingly, it was a fare-free bus! The downside was that the driver seemed rather grumpy about my bringing my rig on board. He did not say a word to me, but glared and sighed several times as I cheerfully said I was hoping I could get it all on board, and asked him to extend the ramp for me on the kneeling bus. (When I thanked him for his help at the end of the ride, he still did not offer a single word of acknowledgment.) He did take the time to secure the trailer, which was good because we went around a number of turns that could have otherwise been unsafe.
After I disembarked, I made my way to the wonderful co-op near my Warmshowers hosts’ place, to pick up some dinner. As I parked the bike, another co-op patron remarked on the Brompton, saying that she had had one years ago, and remembered it fondly.
There was one more steep hill to scale after that, in the final mile to my destination. I trudged most of it.
To my extreme surprise, shortly after my arrival I got a comment on a Facebook post from my friend Denise, whom I had known for years in Portland, and then stayed with in Arizona back in October of last year. (She even drove me a long and very mountainous distance then, from just south of Sedona to her then-home in Chino Valley, north of Prescott.) It turns out she is in Port Townsend right now, too! If our sleeping and traveling schedules line up in the morning, we will meet for a breakfast chat tomorrow, before I board the ferry to Whidbey Island.
What a small world.
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I had a lovely sailing this morning on the Coho Ferry, from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. Cousin Betty dropped me off, and I soon got to chatting with the many other cyclists on board, all bound for various adventures.
The ferry itself was beautiful; I loved the midcentury industrial vibe (including those windows, and that green!) on the 1959 vessel.
It was a bit chilly and windy to stand outside, but the scenery was beautiful during the sailing.
Upon arrival, I dropped off my trailer at the home of my Warmshowers host Lillian, and took off to explore the fabled Olympic Discovery Trail. I only managed to see about six miles of it—I headed west, whereas tomorrow I’ll take it east, on the way to Port Townsend via Sequim—but the scenery did not disappoint. Autumn has begun peeking out from my forest photos these days, and it’s very photogenic.
After stopping at the natural food store deli for dinner, I returned to the house and met Lillian and her cuddly cat George. We chatted about bicycling and traveling (she has traveled half the 750-mile distance from Port Townsend to Ketchikan, Alaska in a rowboat by herself!!) before turning in for the evening.
Tomorrow I will ride the Discovery Trail to Sequim, where I will catch a bus to my next destination of Port Townsend. I’m looking forward to a beautiful journey.
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I have had a wonderful visit for the past two days with my cousin Betty here in Esquimalt, just west of Victoria. On a couple of occasions, we headed into that beautiful city for meals and sightseeing.
When I first arrived in Victoria on my bike from just up the island in Central Saanich, I was chagrined to notice the heavy smoke from forest fires to the east, on the mainland. (And I worried a bit about how those particulates might be affecting my lungs as I cycled, although I also saw many other cyclists out, taking advantage of the wonderful local bike infrastructure.) I had been seeing posts from Facebook friends in Oregon and Washington about all the forest-fire smoke there, and had been counting myself lucky that we didn’t have it here on Vancouver Island. But as I rode that roughly 12-kilometer (8-mile) stretch, there it was.
Fortunately, it cleared up substantially by the following day (yesterday) and by today it was almost gone.
On my way in, I stopped briefly in Victoria to get a treat at the Cinnaholic bakery, then headed across the bridge to Esquimalt to meet Betty.
When I arrived at her charming house, I felt sure I was in the right place when I saw the wonderful sign on her gate.
The next day, we went into Victoria to meander about. Once again, I marveled at all the beautiful hanging flower baskets that epitomize the city to me. We also saw a sidewalk artist who was making a beautiful temporary design on the brickwork.
Soon afterward, Betty took me down an alleyway paved with 100+ year-old wooden bricks! I had never seen nor heard of such a thing. They seem to have held up very well, although a sign warned that they do get slippery when wet.
We passed the provincial (British Columbia) parliament building, whose architecture always wows me. I learned that the architect who designed it, Francis Rattenbury, was in his early 20s at the time!
Next we visited the fabled Empress Hotel, another of Rattenbury’s creations (at age 25). We walked throughout, admiring the famous “high tea” room (cost per person $89; we did not partake) as well as the beautiful, recently restored glass ceiling in an adjoining room.
Afterward, she took me to a local Japanese garden with a tragic history of WWII-era racism. It was heartbreaking to read the placards and see the original 1907 photos, knowing that the family’s pride and joy was later destroyed. It was somewhat heartening, though, that the community did later rebuild the garden, and it was lovely to tour it.
Then today, we went to another beautiful local garden with a fascinating story (again involving WWII-era internment, although this time in Europe) and gorgeous landscaping. I especially enjoyed the beautiful oaks and huge rhododendrons.
Finally, we went to pick up some specialty grocery items at a shop, The Market Garden, unlike any I have seen. I felt as if I had been transported to an opulent European market, with floor-to-ceiling displays of colorful and delicious-looking wares, as well as interior design flourishes such as chandeliers.
As a bonus, I even found one of my favorite chocolate bars (the vegan and fair-trade coconut-milk chocolate Camino bars in Canada, known by the brand name Equal Exchange in the US) on clearance—they were just at the expiration date—for 50% off! (If you haven’t tried these bars, make a point to do so. Wow.)
All in all, it has been a wonderful time with wonderful company here in Victoria and Esquimalt. Tomorrow, I will board the ferry to Port Angeles, Washington, where new adventures await!
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