Woke up super early to the best host breakfast a gal could ever ask for (all the fixins for breakfast burritos). 'Twas my final van day, and it was bound to be a doozy, but ended up being a really good day. The entire first 50 miles was mostly climbing, so I set up first lunch and waited, and waited, and waited. It was a really nice morning and we were set up right next to a campsite, so it was the ideal place to read and drink coffee as we're so close to the end of the trip that I had very little actual work that I could be doing. I finished the book I had been reading for most of the trip, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, which Natalie had recommended. Things I don't recommend: finishing the book at the same time as finishing a cross country bicycling trip. There are words. There are feelings.
When people started showing up to lunch, I got a call from sweep and learned that neither of them carried a pump with them (and had gotten a flat), so I drove back to mile 17 blasting some music and watched the riders look scared and confused as I passed them in the other direction. Eventually, I made it back to lunch where many of the riders had befriended a guy hiking the PCT. They continued to leave their trash everywhere and continue on their ride, but I had plenty of time to clean before sweep got in, and then we spent lots of time chillin.
Eventually, sweep moved on and so did I. Set up second lunch, and hardly any of the riders stopped there. I thought I would be in and out until sweep arrived and ate an entire bag of marshmallow mateys. We, again, hung out and not quite chilled in the shade until a late hour. Then we continued on into Portland. Explored town while picking up loads of donated burritos from Chipotle. Went back to host for dinner. Explored town with some folks. When I returned to the host late in the night, I finally saw the magic bus that Dan had been talking about all night. Our contact for the build day had lent us a bus for shuttling to the build site, but it was painted and the seats had been taken out and cozy chairs had replaced them. Naturally, I fell asleep in the magic bus. It was a great.
The next morning, we had a build with Rebuilding Together. Unfortunately, leader responsibilities got in the way of being fully present there, but on the bright side - Jay and I got to go on an adventure. We sped off to Carlton (the city where we will ride tomorrow) to acquire a host site. Luckily, we found one super early in the morning, but had to spend some time acquiring a shower site. We made it back in time to shuttle back to host and run the remaining errands of the day (groceries, mail drop, etc).
That evening, our RT contact, Luis, had us over to his office to hang out. It was a really cool space and we really enjoyed getting to hang out with him and hear about what he does. I would go into it, but it really makes no sense how he can juggle all of the things he does and be as optimistic about life as he is. Twas refreshing to hear.
Walked to the river. Walked back to host. Played on the playground. Went to bed.
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