Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway
We’re heading out to ride the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway from south to north. We’re driving down to Eugene with Brian and he’ll drive the truck home. Then we’ll be on our own for the next five days.
Ready to load the bike. Let’s hope we survive this.
A little after 9:00 Wednesday morning ready to ride.
There’s nothing like a beautiful day with the wind at your back… We’ll let you know if that happens. We did have a beautiful day but we also had 10 mph headwind all day. Once we turned east toward Brownsville traffic was very light and very polite. Many people moved completely into the opposing lane as they passed us.
We had good Mexican food at Armando’s in Brownsville for lunch. Then we visited the Living Rock Studio. Interesting history, lots of rocks, some striking rock art and an old organ.
We made it to Amanda’s (our niece) in Albany at about 6:00 and had dinner with Amanda at Red Robin’s. We’re looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Breakfast at Elmer’s then east and north to Jefferson.
The view from an old cemetery on a hill on the way to Jefferson.
The road to Independence is not straight, not flat and includes a steep bridge with fast traffic. It requires effort to get to there. But once you get there you find a nice new hiker/biker camp (technically not open until July) surrounded by trees right next to the river. They have bike hoops at each site for locking up your bike and a nice bike tool stand and tire pump. It feels secluded but it’s just a short walk up to the street where you find a convenience store and a few restaurants.
We decided to quit here for the day (after riding into Monmouth for some ice cream and fruit).
Met another bike camper, Mike, from Idaho. He pulled in shortly after we finished setting up camp. He started at Armitage park this morning. So he rode in one day what took us two. Oh well, I’m just going to believe that we enjoyed it more.
In the morning we ate breakfast, packed up, headed out and passed a bakery a block or so from the park. Which required a u-turn so we could have a cinnamon roll and pastry. Then we headed out again.
Road through Salem with a little help from a nice lady who stopped to talk with us in the park where we stopped for the restroom. The gps was telling us to go left while the router marker was telling us to go right. I later discovered that I had not done a very good job of mapping the route through Salem. The “nice lady” got us headed the right way again. We rode by the capitol and a couple blocks off route for lunch at a Subway. Then got back on the route and just followed the signs until they met back up with the route on the gps.
We got to Willamette Mission State Park by early afternoon. Mike, from last night, rode in a few minutes behind us. There was also a young couple there for the night. We had a brief talk about our bike. She thought it looked like a really good idea. He wasn’t too enthusiastic though. It seems like a lot of girls like the idea of a tandem (at least until they hear that they don’t get to steer or brake). A lot of guys don’t like the idea from the start. They seem to think it will slow them down too much. The way we see it it’s a lot nicer to be able to talk while you ride and to arrive at the same time. I think you’d have to work really hard to get us to ride separate bikes for any real distance.
We were a little slower starting this morning. It was about 10:00 by the time we headed out. But we knew it would only take two or three hours to ride to Champoeg.
The Butteville General Store, near Champoeg, might be the oldest operating store in Oregon but it’s not very general anymore. Candy bars, soda and ice cream was all we found there for lunch. Though that did mean that I had an excuse for having two ice cream bars and a soda for lunch. Fay settled for only one ice cream bar.
The bike camp was empty when we got there but six more people arrived during the afternoon. Paul, a young man from Hillsboro was on his first overnight ride. He sat and talked with us for a while after he got setup. Then David and Zoey , a couple about our age, rode in from NE Portland. Last to arrive was a young couple with their two and half year old son. We didn’t get their names but they came over and shared some plums they’d picked and talked for awhile. When Fay mentioned that it was our anniversary the young lady asked “how many years?” When Fay told her it was our 34th she looked a little stunned. “You’ve been married longer than I’ve been alive”! She’s 28.
We had not packed enough breakfast food so we were planning candy bars for first breakfast and then real food once we rode into Newberg. But as we were packing up Sunday morning David, having heard our breakfast plans, came over and gave us a banana, some blueberries and a couple slices of bread. “We have extra” he said. Between that and a snickers bar we made it to Shari’s in Newberg for a real breakfast. It’s amazing how easy it is to clean your plate when you’ve spent the days riding.
Then it was time to head for the dreaded Rex Hill and on into Sherwood. We rode up the hill at just over 3 mph. When we got to Sherwood we decided we weren’t really hungry enough for lunch so we just stopped at Safeway for drinks and a bag of chips. That seemed to be enough because we still weren’t really hungry when we rode down our driveway at about 2:00 PM.
Not only did we survive the ride I think we enjoyed it enough that we’ll be looking for where we can ride next."