Spoiler Alert!

We are officially spoiled. On this big adventure we are expected to be roughing it. Biking through treacherous terrain with inclement weather and no place to stay at night. Well the state of Oregon is spoiling us as you guys can see. We had finally a day of good weather for biking, although we still have not gone a day without rain. After waking up Wednesday morning, we had to give our bikes some lovin', so we took them to Biketopia in Crovallis. They took excellent care of us and our bikes and had us on our way for our 50 mile ride to Eugene. The super flat ride gave us plenty of time to make it before dark. Thanks to Lisa Edy for the connection, we stayed with her old friend Tina and her husband Martin. Once again we had complete strangers go out of their way and treat us to more than we could possibly ask for. Tina and Martin took out to dinner at The Falling Sky Brewery then to every beer drinker's heaven, The Bier Stein. These two basically gave up their house to three strangers and we cannot thank them enough for being so kind. We made the decision to hang around Eugene for a second day, which was excellent because we got another chance to get VooDoo donuts. We walked the U of O campus in our swiftwick U of O socks then went to Oakshire Brewery to see some pickin' and grinnin' by Rachel, our Warm Shower host for tonight. We have gotten the full Eugene experience for sure. Rachel set us up in the guest cobb house. We are now imagining that we are a part of Little House on the Prairie. We are thinkin' we should probably start of scrap book to show the variety of places we have stayed in. As for next few days, we have some pretty big things ahead. As in hills. We have a good, long day with some climbing to Cougar Hot Springs. We just have to keep our eye on the prize for that one. The hot springs will get us ready for a 5,000 ft climb to the top of Mckenzie Pass the next day. We may have little service and phone battery so just stay tuned!

It's a "beer", get it?!

Beer heaven @beerstein

Happy man!

DELICIOUS FOOD AND BEER!

Martin and Tina's place. Thanks guys!

lazar's Bazar...very weird knick knack market. PS: Lazar has orange painted toe nails, he's sixty

Cozy night at Mitreya. Nat gets excited about peeing in buckets

Cob made houses @Mitreya. Huge Eco-hippie commune in Eugene, Or

Mckenzie river canal

Getinit!

Jordan is a happy boy with some Christmas cheer!

I aspire to look like this in the next 5 years

Nat kicking ass rocking it for MOAB and Ride for reading!

Cougar hot springs. LIVIN THE LIFE!

Mud bath born again a new man! Next to the naked lady and her Tarzan boy

Another Day Another Dollar

Stopping in Grand Ronde for a short day proved to be a good idea. The showers and laundry room drew us to the Wandering Spirit campsite and RV grounds where we once again found incredible hospitality. We were given three heaping plates of spaghetti AND caprisuns...you can't get much better than that. Except you can. The lovely couple that provided us food, Tyler and Jan, also offered up their living room for us to stay in out of the rain for the night. We are continually amazed by the kindness of strangers. We got an early start, feeling good and refreshed from our day of rest and just laundered clothes to bike roughy 55miles to Corvallis. We even had time to do a little wine tasting. Our lovely host Kayla made the stop worthwhile. We tested out Warm Showers for the first time and got another nice place to stay in out of the rain. Joey couldn't have a better place for cyclists with plenty of couches and a full bike shop. We are shooting for Eugene

tomorrow which is about another 50 miles. We will keep you guys posted!

Doing laundry and eating Jan's delicious spaghetti.

Wine tasting at Chateau Bianca Winery

Nat sippin away

This is wine making 

New friend

Day Six and Sick of Rain

Day 6 of our trip. This means we have not gone without rain in 6 days. I guess we just have to keep telling ourselves that the rain is the reason for Oregon's beauty that we have fallen in love with. But 6 days of rain was all we could handle this morning. The intentions of a 6am rise turned into a 3:30pm departure from the campsite. Let's just say we took our first Dwayne's Day early. If you are asking yourself what that means...you can't afford it. So we at least got about 15 miles in when we all very well could have stayed in the tent at The Salmon River Evergreen campground all day. This gives us time to do some much needed laundry and give our legs a day to get refreshed to do a long day of pedaling tomorrow, possibly all the way to Eugene. We hope to update you guys with more pictures, but the iPhones and iPad aren't very friendly with that process. We have a lot of them on Facebook though so be sure to check that. We love to hear from you guys so keep it coming!

OCEAN EXPLORING ... RUSTING NOT TANNING

Day 4 has been the most exciting of all. It has been very difficult to blog because we have had even more excitement than expected. We rose early enough Saturday morning to hit up the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which means we had free cheese and ice cream samples for breakfast! The rest of the day was filled with many well-worth-it stops. The scenery was breathtaking and we have many pictures to show you guys. We ventured into closed roads and braved the site of a mudslide in order to check out a lighthouse, some wild life and The Octopus Tree. From there we made our way down to the beach for the "dipping of the wheels into the ocean" ceromony with intentions of dipping into the Atlantic ocean in a few months.

Park stealth camp

Awesome light house in Oceanside

Octopus tree

Dipping the wheel

Lest go to the Atlantic now !

 We stopped for some clam chowder in Oceanside, Oregon to recharge but once on our way again we were shorty distracted by Lexi's Cool Stuff. All I can say is that Lexi is a hoot and she had brownies and rum balls for everyone who entered her store. Within a few short miles of the store we ran into some jogging guys in togas when we realized that Jordan's "wallet" (money rubber banded to a piece of cardboard)  was missing. We knew our wonderful first day was too good to be true and our spirits started fading when the wallet did not show up at the cafe, the road or mixed in with Lexi's Cool Stuff. However, thanks to Jordan's bowels, one last trip to the port-a-potty revealed to him his wallet...floating in the blue sea of human waste.  We would say Jordan had a day of mixed emotions. Nothing a hose and some hand sanitizer can't fix! With our spirits high again(or was that Lexi's rum balls?) we were on our way again.

Lexi's cool stuff

 

 We hit a pretty massive climb for several miles but going from 3 mph to 35 mph made the climb worth the coast down. But at the bottom was another misfortune. Due to the holiday weekend, all of the campsites were full. Starving, tired and desperate to get in from the rain we resorted to knocking on doors for a yard to camp in. Well we definitely picked the right door. Jim the logger and his wife Sherley graciously allowed us to camp out on their back deck. We spent a nice night around the fire with them as well as Ed, Fred and Kelly before going to bed. Our next mishap was when Natalee's phone fell into the perfectly sized crack between the deck and the house. Jim once again saved the day with his handy dandy pincher. Jordan's wingspan and steady surgical hand freed the phone from the wooden prison or doom just in time for a wonderful breakfast of pancakes and eggs whipped up by Sherley. Oregon has definitely been kind to us and made this trip too amazing in less than a week. Today we bike onward for our last day on the coast before turning inland. We hope to update more frequently. Keep in touch and keep it classy!

Action shot!

Jim an Sherly's place !

Greetings from the Hawthorne hostel of Portland, Oregon. We made it with our bikes and ALL of our belongings...that's always a plus. Today has been a long day of travel...but of course we have much more traveling to do! We were at the Nashville airport by 6:30 am and it was nearly 10 central time before arriving at the hostel, wet and chilled from Portland's "summertime" weather. We have met some nice people already, which is one thing that we are looking forward to. Thanks Beth for the donation and encouragement and we wish you the best on your trip to Yellowstone. Also, a few days belated thanks to Dr. Paul Ledoux for your donation. The plan is to hang around here for another day and one more night to check out the city and to get our ducks in a row before heading to Tillamook to begin our ride on the TransAm. We are exhausted but wanted to keep you guys updated so here are a few pictures from the day. More trip details to come!


Nashville airport!



Annnddd the Portland airport. We have good reason to believe that Jesus has risen again to serenade travelers at airports via string instruments. His name might also be Jimmy Free World.

Wow! Where have the last few months gone?? We are t-minus one week from our big journey. The last couple of months have gone by in the blink of an eye and the last few weeks have been even faster than that! All free of school and jobs, the vagabonds have been hard at work, packing, training planning, saying goodbye, visiting sponsors and geekin’ out…only a little though. We cannot thank you all enough for the crazy amount of support. Moab has really hooked us up and worked with us since the start, Swiftwick treated us like kings by inviting us to the headquarters and sending us out with lots of swag, Ride for Reading set us up with some jerseys, and most importantly of all, we have gained a tremendous amount of support from friends, family, acquaintances and random strangers. Last Saturday Gayle Jordan offered up her beautiful farm for a farewell celebration, a chance for friends and family to gather and a last effort to make some major donations for our ride. The donations mean a lot, but the words of encouragement mean the world. We cannot express how much it means for people to have confidence in us. And we have made it this far. We have the major obstacle left of getting our things on the plane…what a headache!... and getting started. Which is the hardest part right? We will be updating you all along the way so be sure to tune into our blog more often. We are so excited to actually get going and share this experience with everyone. Keep the support coming guys! We've got a long way to go!

Thanks MOAB!