Day 10: Obstacles, Eugene

Longest day yet again! Although this time it was by accident:
I started off at an RV Park in Roseburg. Since it was sprinkling a bit I decided to try cooking outside the tent but still under the fly and found it works great! Then I strolled down to the bathrooms to take care of business and found them in more than just a state of disrepair. The showers had no stalls, which I guess may have been standard in the 70s, but the toilets having no stall doors? Let's get with it people, this is 2012, not 1812. So it was the first time I've used a public bathroom in complete view of anyone that would have come in. Thanks, Douglas County Fairgrounds, for checking that one off the bucket list for me.

I started riding and had great energy and was making good time along Hwy 99 when I saw the Coconut Latte daily special at the Oakland, OR (much more benign than its Bay Area Brother) coffee shop. A latte and a "magic bar" and I was on the road again making great time. At the pace I was on I was set to hit Eugene around 2pm.

It had been sprinkling all morning but that dries quick in the wind so I wasn't worried. I snacked in Drain, then kept moving until deciding to put on shoe covers since those are the only items I'd have to use again the next day. After hopping off the bike I realized I hadn't closed my food pannier so I turned around to find the strap that had fallen off. It cost me 4 miles total but I found it.

Back on the road, speeding through the countryside until I hit Territorial Hwy which had some significant climbs. But the whole time I still felt pretty good. I even had one local pull over and ask if I wanted to come in for coffee since by that time it was a solid rain. "No thanks, I'm doing good," and I kept going, looking for Lorane Hwy. I saw Lorane and made the turn, not realizing it was Lorane ROAD. After pushing and pushing and not seeing the next turn, I made it into Cotton Grove, a good 24 miles from Eugene.

At this point I should have already been to my hotel and now it had been raining on me for the last 3 hours and I was more than an hour away! My shoes were soaked through and I was getting damned hungry, but what else could I do? I buckled down and hauled ass to Eugene. I've never had such athletic focus and determination. It could have literally been raining cats and dogs instead of just figuratively and I wouldn't have noticed. My head was down, eyes on the white line, pushing 22 mph in the rain for the next hour.

Getting into Eugene the weather cleared, I found a motel, and checked my odometer to find a daunting number: 95 miles at 16 mph average, a record day in both respects. To my delight the room had a bath tub so I indulged before donning my civilian clothes and heading out to the Rogue Brewing Public House as well as Falling Sky Brewing.

As I return to my room, full of delicious food and beer and looking forward to the first bed in 10 days, I can't help but laugh at the appropriateness of a Ripples Newsletter quote I read this morning:

"It takes so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or courage to pay the price... One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying."
-Morris West