Where Idaho meets Mr. Washington

So we are a good five days in on the trip, covered 55 the first day, 52 the second, 48 the third, 90 the fourth and 80 the fifth. Slowly warming up to the idea of tugging a ton of extra weight made for an interesting few days. Every big meal seems to be as amazing as the next and camping each night is half the battle. We stayed in spider infested bushes in the desert, a couple state parks, and in someones backyard for a night... Puttering through you can meet some interesting people willing to lend an extra hand. Some places it was firewood and others it was a place to sleep and free drinks. These quarky little towns draw out some strange folk, but that is the fun of it. Oregon took a while to burn through, random weather, random people and plenty of tom foolery to go around. Washington blew by in a couple days and we are walking distance from the Idaho border leading to Lewiston right now. We have the 12 ahead of us and 218 miles of absolute nothingness till Missoula Montana. We are making our way to Yellow Stone from there, but we are climbing some elevation from here on out. Looking forward to the ride, locals say it is pretty nice. Had a cool car show last night too. Derek and Jared got a couple pitchers of beer on the house and we are forecasted rain for the next couple days. Wish us luck.

The Oregon Experiment

Every great adventure has its lead players, each needs to play off the others differences and it somehow needs to jumble together into a progressive moving mass that takes them somewhere. Our team seems to assemble some interesting qualities, each of us have our vices and problems and we each are going into this looking to get something different out of it. Derek and I have known one another since Kindergarten and Jared I have known each other since middle school; so knowing each other this well enables the best kind of constructive criticism as well as the inherent ability to crush the others spirit at any moment. Lets face it, when you know someone long enough, you know how to make them hurt. So all that aside we have great potential for success and utter failure, which seems promising enough.
So the trip starts with its challenges, 25 hours straight of driving in a position where you cannot fall asleep. Also getting lost somewhere on the one past the golden gate bridge and harassing some AAA agencies for maps. Needless to say we made it to crater lake just in time to catch the sunrise and it did not disappoint. The deep orange streaks spread from the distance and with every passing moment the water grew from the ultra still dark black to a blue that borders on crystal clear. The cliffs gave the area this unapproachable reverence that made the prospect of hiking down a dark shot in hell and as soon as we soaked in the magnificence of the scene we passed out next to some lookout point on a trail .
Derek and I were walking on no sleep, but Jared somehow found a way to sleep in the most awkward of positions, Jared is an awkward guy though so it makes sense. We took the rest of that day looking for a good camp site along the 138; every quarter mile seemed to present a more incredible camp ground, completely vacant and teeming with towering waterfalls and dense forest. We nestled in along the shore of some river and relaxed under the trees for the night, we even found some logs laying around so when the night passed we roasted some wieners and played some bridge by the fire. Oh, and got pretty drunk.

We finally made it to Portland and my cousins welcomed us with a place to hang out and plenty of food, later my Aunt and Uncle completely spoil us with their amazing cooking and hospitality. Then pasta and beer rained in from the heavens and for the next couple days we strolled the gorgeous streets of Portland and enjoyed the company of good family. We also owe Greg and Suzi a huge debt for all they threw in for us in preparation for this crazy endeavor. Greg had some awesome stories and helped us map our route and gave us some good survival tips. Also took us out on the town and got us some gear and beer, go together pretty well i think and tomorrow he leads us out of the city by bike and the insanity is close to beginning.


Didn't have time to fix spelling and speech so deez with it