a journey of a thousand miles always has the second step second...

The first step was when we left Port Angeles. The second step is starting the bike trip.

Well, i had a great photo to post to this one, but we are now sans computer, so I am on Sandra's Mac now and can't figure the thing out. Oh well, a written description will have to do...

But before that, we are leaving for the Oregon Coast with Sandra and Sean tomorrow and will spend two days with Sandra and Sean on the coast. On Monday night they will drop Christine and I at a campground around Manzanita and will start pedalling from there on Tuesday morning. Christine and I just returned from shipping our stuff down to so. california where we will pick it up after the bike trip. All that remains for us to do now is pedal...

and pedal...

and pedal...

and so forth. You get the idea. Life simplified.

And now the story. So Sean, Christine and I rode our bikes in to downtown Portland two nigths ago to visit REI for a new bike helmet for Christine. It is a short ride, just a few miles, on great bike paths and lanes and over the willamette river. Two things made this trip particularily notable. First, I was carrying a surfboard on my trailer to give my new attachment system a test run. It worked great and I am looking forward to seeing how this whole process is going to work with a fully loaded trailer. Next, as we were riding down a downtown street Christine got her front tire stuck in the rift created by the Max tracks built into the road. And then she fell. Hard. It was hard enought that sean and I were both convinced that she would be severely injured (i had even convinced myself that I saw her lower leg break in the fall) - but she came up, quite thankfully for a whole host of reasons, nearly unscathed.

and then we learned that this was Christine's initiatory, virgin, first-time wreck on a bike. she walked a away with a scrape on her shoulder (that was the photos, imagine if you will) and a tiny dot of blood on her elbow. I certainly hope that there won't be any more, but we do have 1100 miles to go. My next wish is that, should we need to have a few, the crashes that we do have are as free of consequence as Christine's first.