So this is it; I’m off to Portland, OR, this afternoon. The ride begins out of Astoria on Saturday, and Roger (see blogroll) and I expect to cover some 4200 miles over the next three months in a somewhat meandering trek that will take us up the Columbia River, over the mountains to Missoula, north to Glacier National Park and across the plains to the Badlands and beyond. Our spirits are strong, but our conditioning is suspect; hopefully, the former will not diminish while the latter improves.
We will finish somewhere on the East Coast be it Astoria, Queens, or somewhere saltier. We may venture into the unknown lands north of us if we remember to bring our passports. Rachael and Laura will come and meet us in Minneapolis by which time I will be a lesser man by a stone if there be honest food untainted by Sysco in America’s breadbasket.
Of all the tropes in American literature and song connected to traveling across this country, I imagine myself akin to an aged Huck Finn making a reverse journey of our fabled Western expansion. To anyone who reads this, if there be friends or friends of friends (or friends of friends of friends) along the way, we should desire to make your acquaintance and share some random moment of fellowship.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Cincinnati, I have lived on both coasts and driven back and forth across the country a number of times. I now have the "midlife opportunity" to do so on two wheels.
Astoria, Queens…is pretty salty.
Astoria Oregon is the idyllic town in which Kindergarten Cop takes place. Fun Fact.