Portland Culture and a Weary Body

Wherever we live we like to do as the locals do, well most of it. We’ll abstain from some of the activity here. People are a little weird. In the last week we’ve gone to First Thursday to see Jennifer’s art show in the Pearl District. That was so much fun and can’t wait to do that again. Then we enjoyed the Saturday Market with my family. Always a great taste of Portland there. We did a little walking around the trails at Council Crest Park. The views are normally great from there of the whole city but it was too hazy that day but we still had a great time.

To top off the weeks activities we decided to ride in the Bridge Pedal at the last minute with some new friends from church. It sounded so fascinating to be able to ride over bridges that we would never ride over if there were normal traffic. So we rode the 5 bridge route and had a great time. There were over 18,000 people who rode. I’ve never seen so many bikes in all my life in one place.

You all would be, or should be impressed. We rode almost 18 miles and I did it on my old Debbie Schwinn cruiser that has only one speed, the speed I make it go. Some of the hills going up to the bridges were a little brutal. I had to get off and walk my bike letting little kids cruise past me. But that’s okay I thought it was better and less embarrassing to walk than to throw up in front of people.  Then the last 5 miles I think all I thought about was what I wanted to eat for lunch. Something tasty and fattening. That helped to take my mind off the fact that my legs were burning and my heiny was numb. 

We finished the ride and the tacos and papusa we had for lunch were incredible. Maybe next year I’ll be in a little better shape for the ride but probably not. We’ll see if I can get out of bed in the morning. I’m already a little nervous for that.

On our ride home I stopped to pick some wild sweet pea’s that line the spring water corridor in honor of the Sweet Pea Festival that we love and missed this weekend in Bozeman.