Day Three, June 10th. A Hundred and fourteen miles. Really

(as reported by Jerry)  We started today at Rickreall, where we had a great campsite all to ourselves at the Polk County Fairgrounds.  We did an early start at about 5:45 am to try to beat traffic, and had a nice tailwind which contributed to a pretty fast pace (for us anyway).  A bike trail for about 6 miles made it very pleasant riding, and even after hitting the highway the traffic was light and the shoulders were wide, so we were feeling great and enjoying the ride.  Corvallis (home of the Oregon State Beavers) was a nice coffee shop stop at Starbucks.  Reenergized, we headed for Eugene.  Unfortunately, we failed the IQ test regarding closely reading the map from Adventure Cycling, and we wound up going all the way into downtown Eugene (home of the Fighting Ducks) and spent about 45 minutes going in circles, asking people for directions, before realizing that we should have taken a left turn about 5 miles back.  We can report that downtown Eugene is very nice, but we regretted the time lost.  Once reoriented, we stopped briefly for lunch and a cyclist stopped by to visit.  He was a local cycle shop owner, and gave us some good advice on where to head the next day.  He looked suspiciously like Mick Jagger, according to Jeff.  He said we should definitely head for McKenzie Pass, because they had not yet opened the road to car traffic from the winter snows.  Anyway, from there, we found ourselves on a really nice section of road for awhile, and then the last twenty miles was back on a major high speed, heavily traveled road with a veryverysmall shoulder.  Not very pleasant.  So we had 95 miles of very pleasant riding, and about 19 miles of anxiety.  Most drivers are very courteous and give us some space.  A few seem determined to try to blow us off the road, as a warped kind of sport.  Sue had found us a great place to stay at a Bed and Breakfast which also has camping sites, so here we are ready to dive into a great meal of pasta and salad.  Sue has done a great job of supporting us on this adventure.

    I love the riding each day.  It is exhilarating to ride and ride for extended times.  The traffic has been a  bigger problem than I thought it would be.  Hopefully the conditions will improve as we get more into rural areas.  Tomorrow we go over McKenzie Pass, which is reported to be a bicyclers dream.   Tune in tomorrow for the outcome.