Day 20: McKenzie Bridge - Eugene

The night is warm and at 6:30am. our Indian camp wakes up. We saddle our horses and hit the road. Three miles down the road we stop for breakfast; hot oats for Tei and a monster veggie omelette for Tomi ($15.85 altogether).

A couple, that plans an across-the-country bicycle trip next year, comes to talk to us. They are going to tandem from New Hampshire to Oregon starting in May 2005. Today they are planning to do some uphill exercise. We assure them there are some serious uphill grades awaiting them towards the McKenzie Pass.

At 9 am. we start the ride to Eugene, the home of University of Oregon. Nice downhill turns into a sequence of uphills and downhills, the shoulder narrows and the traffic gets busier, with a lot of trucks passing us. At 3pm., after a long industrial entrance, and riding some handy bike lanes we reach downtown Eugene (elev. 422'). With the help of the tourist info center we find Courtesy Inn motel. Tei does laundry while Tomi goes shopping for a new derailleur hanger. Both projects succeed and it is a time to find some food.

Today we rode 86km in 4:55.

The Duck's restaurant & Brewery next door has gone out of business, so we continue to the Steelhead Brewing Co.. Beers are good; they have Whitedog, English style pale (IPA if you ask Tei) in cask. The food is good, too. Tei has a starter salad ($3.95) and Cajun shrimp pasta ($9.95) and Tomi Chinese chicken salad ($12.95). We are told that there is another brewpub called "Mac Manamin" in town, but everyone seems to have a different idea about its whereabouts.

It takes us a couple of hours to find the place, called McMenamins, High Street Brewery and Cafe. Finally, we realize that McMenamins has at least two locations in town, and we have been shuffled between the them.

Once we find the place we sample six of their beers and drink pints of oat-stout and cask-ale. This place is really cosy and reminds us of Runcible Spoon in Bloomington, Indiana and Eske's Brew Pub in Taos, New Mexico.

We finish the night at Horse Head saloon downtown, whose doorman lets us in, even if we don't have the passports, required by the state law, with us. We meet two other Finns from Raute Group in the bar, who are in the town for business. We wonder what goes in the doorman's mind as in this single night he has to deal with so many Finns pouring in without their passports.

Day 21: Eugene - Florence

The morning is dark and grey. We wait for Lucky Noodle to open at 8am. It looks like a fancy place for breakfast, but it is reasonably priced; Tomi has smoked salmon on bagel for $6.75 and Tei French Toast for $6.50. Food is good, too.

Before starting the day's journey we visit Amtrak station with a plan to postpone our train reservation from Portland to Chicago for one day. It all works out fine and at 9am. we start pedalling.

No surprise, it starts raining soon, and from time to time it pours pretty heavily. The road has practically no shoulders and heavy headwind limits our speed even in downhills to 8km/h. When we start climbing to the Cougar Pass (elev. 769'), weather gets a little better. In Walton, after riding 37.8km in 2:50, we find a nice cafeteria and stop for a latte and a smoothie.

Finally, the sun comes out and we have to put some sunscreen on. After passing the final mountain range before the Ocean we have a steep 7% descent and tunnels equipped with warning lights that bicyclist can turn on (but not off) for drivers. The traffic is relatively heavy, but no one seems to care about the speed limit in the tunnels when bicyclists are present.

At 5pm. we reach Florence (elev. ~0'). We find an RV-park next to the Old Town. A tent site costs only $10, showers and fish smell included.

We rode 99.9km in 6:25 hours today. In total we have pedalled 2038.8km so far.

It is windy. We set up the tent, take shower and head to the town for dinner. After studying the menus of several restaurants in old town Florence, we choose the Waterfront restaurant, which is an excellent choice. We are ready to celebrate the Pacific Ocean. We order Lagunitas IPA's for pre-starters. For an appetizer we have Patè. For the dinner Tei has Caesar salad and halibut in chili cream sauce. Tomi has salad greens and snapper in coconut curry sauce over rice. For the wine we select Therese Chardonnay 2000 of Lorelli Vineyard; grapes from Applegate Valley, produced and bottled by Eola Hills Wine Cellars in Rickreall, Oregon. The food is really good, and we compliment the kitchen on our way out.

After the dinner we visit a cosy wine bar for a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir. The last stop of the night is Beachcomber Tavern; by a pint of beer we give a short course on Finnish history to someone interested in it.

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