10/12- Ride to Portland

My last morning at Wendie's was filled with a lazy scramble to make sure I had everything packed, took care of all the house hold things I needed to have done, and was leaving the house in good condition for their return from their bike tour of Idaho. Then it was out the door and down the street to return some things at the library and meet my ride down by Tyler St. Cafe. This ride of mine was yet another fortuitous meeting made over the counter the previous Friday.

Joe and Roshella had driven up from Portland the previous Friday to visit some friends of theirs. It was the first of my "new shifts" that I was covering to pay for my visit to Ari, and my only hesitation on taking them was my concern over getting back across the country by Halloween for my Dad's birthday with a few days in San Francisco along the way. I figured a few extra days was no big deal, and meeting Joe that first shift sealed my conviction of trusting it'll all work out as its supposed to.

Joe and I got talking while I was making his drink when I heard they were up from Portland. Through my asking about the city I mentioned I was hitching around the country and heading to Portland come Sunday afternoon. He then offered a ride down if I wanted to wait until Monday morning which, come Sunday, allowed me the time to pick up yet another shift before shoving off. Now it was Monday morning as I sat by the harbor, but I had only a few minutes to concern myself with whether or not they'd remembered the offer or not before they swung by and scooped me up.

It was quite the kick off to what would be an amazing coastal run to San Fran. Joe is an old school musician who spent many of his years roaming town to town playing gigs and living that guitar pick/beer bottle lifestyle. He generally played folkish, country, sort of blues type music that's probably best described as Americana but he doesn't like that moniker. Mostly, as we talked about his music and social beliefs, he reminded me quite a bit of an American version of my friend Jane's father over in England. Later I connected with Joe through Facebook and suggested the two to connect. I have no idea what came of that, if anything.

This was maybe the first hour of the ride, if that. Soon enough Roshella chimed in when I began murmuring hints of my more spiritual beliefs. It began with a brief mention of having seen Ari for the hypnotherapy session. To my very great surprise Roshella was a trained hypnotherapist, and apparently quite a gifted one with tales of her experience practicing it that were so intense it drove her from the profession. This spurned further conversations into the nature of the friendship with the people they had just been visiting. It turned out these people ran tours of little known Celtic spiritual spots in Ireland and the UK. Of course that lead to my interests in looking up those very things when I got to England the next month. It was that sort of back and forth, and immediacy of familiarity that struck me quite intensely with the connections of that ride.

When we arrived in Portland it was too soon for us all. Roshella invited to take me out to lunch so we extended our conversation another hour or so. After lunch we wandered over to Powell's Used Books, the largest used bookstore in the country, so that she could pick up a book I recommended and I could pick up a Paolo Coehlo book in the original Spanish so I can work on learning the language. From there they drove me to The Basement Pub on the east side of Portland. Here I was hoping to meet up with an old New York friend, Drake, who I'd heard back in May was working there. Joe, Roshella and I said our goodbyes there and I strode into the bar.

I liked the place. It fit that Drake would work in a place like that since it had the same dark, dingy, but comfortable feel of our old coffee shop, Auggies, back in NYC. Sitting at the bar I asked if he still worked there, which he did, but when the bartender called his house to tell him I was around she got no answer. I stayed an hour or so sipping on a beer and doing some writing, but when he never called back I just figured I missed him.

From there I walked back downtown trying to work out what my next move would be. I returned to Powell's and spent a good two or three hours reading in there until they closed up around sunset. My mind had been working in the background on what to do about a place to stay that night, and where to go. I had sent a text off to Penney and Robert down in Eugene to see if they'd be around to get me should I take a train in that night. Joe and Roshella had also offered their place if I got stuck, but for whatever reason I was just feeling like moving on from Portland. I liked the city quite a bit, but was feeling a hair anxious about making time. I had 18 days to make it 4,000 miles with very little money. As the quest would press on it would soon become very apparent to me that this would be a sort of "final exam" for the various lessons I believed I'd learned on the way out.

Patience was the foremost of these lessons and I didn't do so well that night. My mind became set on the idea of using some of my $50 gift certificate to clear the sprawl of Portland. It was only $22 to go to Eugene but the train got in at midnight. I got a response back from Robert saying they wouldn't be up around then because he was catching a 5am train to Portland to fly back to Denver the next day. I went to the train station and, for posterity's sake, tried to call Joe before buying the ticket. The pay phone ate my quarters so I took that as a sign saying just go if you want to go south; so I did.

That night I got off the train around midnight as scheduled and found a park across the tracks from the station. It was a much hillier park than it seemed in the dark and every time I tried cutting through "tall grass" up a "small hill" I found myself wading through prickers up a never ending hill. Eventually I found a clearing, still sloped, but comfortable enough to bed down on, and it actually turned out to be quite comfortable. Penney had let me know that if I did come down and got stuck for a place to stay that I was definitely welcome, but I figured this was better form for a guest that was clearly told it wasn't the best timing. Either way, I was now in Eugene and still got a good nights rest.