August 7th:
The last “real” ride day. By this, we meant that it was the last time we’d have a very usual morning routine. We’d have members of our team drive the vans, whereas on Day 70 we’d have alumni drive so that none of us were left driving the last day when we reached Portland; we’d have to pack up the vans in the usual fashion, with duffle bags going in the host van and backpacks in the water van, whereas we’d stuff all of these things in one van on the last day and say goodbye to one van, which was being taken back to the rental place early; we’d have this last day where we were on our own schedule, whereas on the day into Portland, the schedule required us to arrive at a certain place in Washington Park at noon to be greeted by our family and friends who were meeting us there. SO – this was the last day!
We obviously went to get coffee, and let me tell you what, we really dragged this one out.
The only strange thing about this day was that everyone was considered to be “going rogue” on their own. No groups were assigned, which to me felt more like Bike & Build, where groups were never assigned. I had no intentions of riding on my own, but when I jokingly rode down the street away from my teammates who were hanging around outside the coffee shop, Sean yelled to me “TYPICAL BIKE & BUILDER!!!” They all know it infuriates me when they make fun of B&B, calling it “Build-a-Bear” instead and finding other ways to pick on me about being on both of these teams, so he was obviously trying to get me riled up. Anyway, they followed behind me shortly after. I rode with a cluster of people, who initially started together and then broke up into two groups within the next several miles. We unintentionally reconvened at a gas station, where we spent entirely too long trying to figure out which nearby winery to detour to. The group was split on what to do, so we shuffled and reorganized the two teams based on who wanted to go where. I was with Jessie, Kyle, Julia, Martha, and Lizzy as we headed out as our own group to Copper Mountain Winery. It had good reviews, the scenery looked enjoyable, and it was at least in the same general direction as our ultimate host site in Beaverton. However, no one seemed to bat an eye at the fact that it was called Copper MOUNTAIN winery, and suddenly we found ourselves unnecessarily climbing in the heat of the day.
It’s fine, we made it, and we enjoyed drinking white wine at a picnic table underneath the shade of the tall trees and the view of the grape vines alongside us, as well as hills and mountains in the far distance.
We spent probably a few hours here. We chatted and seemed to forget how close we were to the end of our time together as a team. I spent some time sleeping in the sun while my teammates ordered another bottle of wine for us to share. Overall, it was a great afternoon spent in the company of some of my favorite teammates!
We later arrived at the host, where we soon departed for our last van ride to showers.
We decided to go out to a Mexican restaurant as a team. It was delicious, and luckily we didn’t seem to irritate our waiter too much, as we are an incredibly overwhelming bunch.
Later that evening, we did presented the “paper plate superlatives!” Mine was Safety Patrol, because I’m always looking out for my teammates and I’m strict (and vocal) about safety in my ride groups. I wish I’d written them all down, but I forgot to!! Afterward, we did 4K confessions, a night we’d all been excited about for a while. I had two confessions with two groups of people. The first was that we didn’t actually hop a train in Nebraska on the way to Alliance. We had jokingly told our teammates that we were going to, and it just so happened that we got stuck in a line of traffic behind a guy named Ben, who got out of his pick-up truck during the long traffic stop to adjust something on his trailer. We made conversation with him, and he asked where we were going. When we told him Alliance, he said he was going too, and he’d be willing to put our bikes on trailer alongside his 4-wheeler if we wanted to skip the last 20 miles or so. We couldn’t say no, especially because of the fibs we’d told people earlier about our plans to catch a train (remember, in Nebraska, there was a railroad that was alongside us almost the whole time). I don’t think many people believed us anyway, but I think I successfully convinced a few, at least.
My next confession was about the ride into Oregon, where we were the last team and we arranged a police escort over the 4 mile bridge. People were LIVID!!! I actually could not believe that people were so mad, calling us selfish for not getting the rest of the team in on it when they all had to shuttle. The bitterness was outrageous. The thing is, by the time we got to the bridge, all the teams were long gone and had likely made it to the host already. We didn’t confirm the police escort until seconds before we arrived at the bridge, so it was incredibly short notice and we weren’t sure we’d pull it off even when the cop arrived to see how this would work. I really don’t feel bad at all about it because any group could have also schemed their way into getting a police escort, but they didn’t take charge of this effort themselves. Plus, this was the day where my team was left with no food at lunch, and we were far behind the other teams because suddenly “rolling water stops” became a normal occurrence, even though we hadn’t done it all trip. It was an every-team-for-themselves situation, so we decided to go along with that philosophy by successfully getting OUR whole team to cross into Oregon by bicycle. Haters gonna hate. WEE WOO WEE WOO (*police siren noise*)
Anyway, overall a fun night with my 4K fam!
Baltimore to Portland with 4K for Cancer 