Day 1828 Saturday 17^th October

We called it a day at Eugene and took a room at a roadhouse with a huge heater, required as we were cold and damp. Taking full advantage of the large warm room we put our sodden tent up and laid out our gear to dry while we ate a splendid omelette in the roadhouse. Watching some of the other diners I was still shocked and saddened by the amount of food that people ordered and then left to end up in a trash can.

Day 1829 Sunday 18^th October

The morning dawned bright with a heap of cloud on the northern horizon, taking a chance I packed my waterproof as we set off to Salam, where we re-fuelled and bought food. in the car lot we were ‘detained’ by three separate groups of folks that wanted to chat about our trip and their travels. Nice!

Arriving at Hayden and Kay’s she told us that we looked like “the real business”! Bikes loaded and we had a tired weary eyes. We had agreed to spend the winter with these great guys, helping out with the garden, home maintenance, sawing and splitting fire wood or whatever needed to be done.

As it turned out our U.S, visa was for ninety days, not six months so we could not linger very long.

Day 1836 Sunday 25^th October

Very cloudy start to the day as we packed out gear, the garden looked good for the overnight rain and smelt wonderfully of damp earth.

As we finished the skies opened and a steady very English soft rain.

Munching brekkie of muffins and toast Kya told us that she was heading to a bar in town to play the wash board and sing in a folk cum blue grass band called The Pagan Jug. Swapping our bike pants for ‘normal’ pants we went with.

The bar was smallish with a stage at the far end and a long bar on the right facing picture windows from which we could watch the now steady rain filling the street gutters.

Day 1837 Monday 26^th October

Left Kya and Hayden’s for Washington.

The road was being graded, our side soft, wet and course loose gravel. We were unable to take advantage of the new side of the track as the grader had left a bank half a meter high on its last pass. Oh well its only a couple of clicks.

Before long we crossed the enormous steel bridge into Washington.