So, Colin & I have managed to self-propel to Portland. Each day, we started off somewhere, and ended up somewhere else! Still pretty amazing to me. Portland is pretty great, as are our hosts Clare & Joel & baby Ella, who are putting us up despite moving to Chicago tommorrow. I saw this guy, an etsy fave of mine, last night during some kind of arty deal: Perfect children. I am also pleased to report that we are back to green, and moss, and related plant life. That whole arid desert thing was beginning to wear on me. The Columbia River Gorge was rather scenically beautiful, and rather windy.
Here, I am going so fast that my wheel has almost vaporized.

goddamn desert.

my award-winning rendering of the Tetons. Grand, they are.

kid falling off sheep at 4th of July rodeo. The best.

dashing, no?


skunks are way cute. They have their drawbacks, yes, but there's a lot going for them too: little fuzzy snout, soft lustrous fur, bushy tail, a waddle-shuffle. That whole spraying thing makes a lot of scents(haha!) if you only think about the last couple thousand years of coevolution with humans. If they weren't so smelly, I'd have a skunk fur blanket for sure, and I'd dust my house with a tail, PETA be damned. We had some curious stinky friends at a campsite a few days ago, and it was hard for me not to squeal when they scampered over to check out our little scene of habitation. No incidents, but we're pretty sure they sprayed the youth group. Haha, good skunks.

The strangest part of this trip thus far has not been biking up mountains, being unemployed, inability to check email 15 times a day, social circle consisting of 60-year olds, buying flourescent yellow biking gear I swore I'd never get, or having no income while spending money like a faucet. It has been being outside, almost always, save for searching frantically for things in the van (actually about 20% of my time), restaurants and the occasional motel. Just always out in the air, sun & shade. It hasn't been this way since childhood summers, and oh my does it require liters of sunblock.