Day 68 – Lincoln City, OR to McMinnville, OR

August 6^th:

I think we subconsciously tried to stretch out these last three days.  We woke up later than usual and had no sense of urgency as we chatted over breakfast and took our sweet time getting out of the host church.  We’ve been “going rogue” (off the queue sheet and finding our own way) more often in our groups as well, so much so that water van didn’t feel the obligation to chalk the route.  Instead, Flora left us this message right outside the church in the parking lot.  (Recall that “Find a Way” is written on the back of our Team Portland bike jerseys and that we’ve been saying this for the past 67 days).

My group of Halle, Gino, Kyle, and Matt all went to go get coffee with Lizzy, Sean, and Patrick.  Did we already get coffee at the breakfast that the host provided?  Yes.  Did we need more coffee?  No, probably not, but screw it, THREE DAYS LEFT.  We do what we want.  And sometimes that means reading the paper OR napping at Starbucks just because you want to.

 

The ride was pretty in the beginning of the day.  I was thrilled about the main road we were on, but it offered a comfortable shade from the tall evergreens that made the ride enjoyable.

It was a hilly day, and again, it was rather unfortunate that my gears were stuck and some of the lowest ones were inaccessible.  We made it to our last summit, called Murphy Hill Summit.  I would like to direct your attention to the irony in the fact that this is by far the smallest sign-worthy elevation I’ve ever seen.

(My last name is Murphy.  I’m really short.  This is the joke.)

We made it to the water stop, where one of the groups had been sitting around for over an hour already.  They weren’t waiting on us or anything, and it wasn’t even that nice of a location to stop, but they just decided they wanted to laze around and goof off with the riders that passed through.  I can’t say I blame them.  I’m glad they stayed so we could hang out with them for a bit!  It was a fairly eventful water stop.  Gino channeled his inner middle school skater boy with a skateboard someone had found on the road a few days back, and then Rhani, who was driving the van, ran over her phone and drove off without realizing it.

The phone was shattered, and as terrible as it is, there was a little bit of humor in the fact that it was Rhani’s phone.  This poor girl has had THE WORST luck on this trip.  Seriously, I don’t know if she got a defective bike from Trek, but the girl has had so many mechanical issues on top of falls off her bike that it was comical (and almost predictable) that this would happen to her.  Jessie couldn’t help but laugh.

The rest of the ride was nice, but for a while we were back in wheat lands.

We stopped for coffee in the afternoon, once again.  It wasn’t so much for the coffee as for the quality time to be spent with a group we saw ahead of us as they went in.

Just a photo of a mural that I liked in this small town:

About 15 miles after the coffee shop, we made it into McMinnville.  We dropped our things off at the host and then I walked to the downtown area with Lizzy, Kyle, and Jessie.  Three of us decided not to change, while one of us decided to be different.  Can you tell who that was?

We found a winery called the Naked Winery and decided we needed to go.  We got a flight of wines to try.  Each of the bottles had a description of the wine, each overloaded with sexual innuendos that made us laugh and sometimes cringe.

We spent the night hanging out at the host, either working on the paper plate awards for the person we’d been assigned to present the superlative to or laying around in the parking lot under the stars.