As I was just falling asleep I saw a sliver of red the briefest glimpse of what lies between these northwestern cedars and over and beyond this mountain. As I was just falling asleep I saw a sliver of red the briefest glimpse of what lies between these northwestern cedars and over and beyond this mountain. 
I think I know the origin of that onamatopia -yep spell chk didn’t even help me with that one. Some dude wearing a French frock coat with ruffles for cuffs & a white wig on his head on an expedition and his porter carrying his instruments and such remarks at the size of the mountains. The dude says, Tis merely a Big Ass Hill. Bah! This is what I think of when I’m up in the mountains all alone.Climbed a few of them today but the best is yet to come.
To sum up today it got so hot that I started chaffing so I went commando under my kilt and then as I was desperate for shade I sat under a pine tree not thinking about the bed of needles. Learned a new lesson. Still I made good progress left philomath and said goodbye to the cascades.
Have no time to tent so I sleep few hrs at a time in places like this grainfield
Made it to hwy 20. 49.3 miles to newport OR. Temp up to 96 tues.
Tomorrow I’ll close the distance to Corvallis Oregon and begin to bestride Highway 20.
This is significant in several ways. First of all, we’ll lose the Cascade Mountains, our long spanning and looming friend to our left since the Canadian border and replace it with the Coastal Range we’ll have to cross over to get to 101.
Hwy 20 is the last remaining inland road and the bridge to the Pacific Coast highway (PCH), our home for the next four months.
Second I’ve scouted it twice and without question it’s unfit and unsafe for Hudson & Indiana so I must go it alone. Some of our new Oregon friends will look after the boys til Thursday. Still even solo it represents significant risk. The mountainous region I’ll have to walk mostly at night when traffic iss lighter and my line of sight is farther.
Add to that cell service is poor and there aren’t any c-stores or restaurants for most of the 55 miles. I’m paring my pack weight down to the absolute essentials. Will try to post updates here… See you on the other side
A few weeks back I was walking south of kalama WA. It was a crappy day & had took ill the day prior & wasn’t feeling any better.
Even still I had the firmest intention of making 25 miles that day but as I left the town a damnable bird jumped right out in front of me. Clearly he/she was injured & I almost walked right by thinking I don’t have time for this.
But I couldn’t leave an injured little feller on the side of the road either. The host family I was staying with helped me get the dove to the Portland Audubon society & I just got off the phone with them & he’s/she’s doing okay.
They’re administering antibiotics. I gave them what cash I had in my pocket and thanked them. I think it’s time for us to name him/her.
Even though I lost 17 miles I have to make up, ‘damn’ dove just doesn’t do justice.
The road is like a reckoning. It settles accounts.
It doesn’t suffer fools and you have no hope of making it if your motives are in the wrong place.
I’ve got one more night in this hotel until we start the next leg of the journey to 20 and up into the mountains and my thoughts return to High Street.
I almost got hit by oncoming traffic like a half dozen times and I do not exaggerate here. I took this photo of a warning sign about falling rocks and I was like, screw that, beware of the rocks in the heads of the drivers coming down this mountain.
There was one driver who came around a hairpin curve texting and she came within inches of hitting me. And I swore to the top of my lungs at her. And then came the voice from up high.
——–
‘Hello’
Shaking, almost pasted against a rock wall in hesitation to continue up this mountain, I looked up and there was this old guy calling out to us. ‘I saw you on TV’, he said. ‘I was worried about the dogs’.
‘You and me both’ I thought to myself unsure how to respond or what to say to this godlike figure although his Lebowski-esque attire didn’t fit the whole supreme being image in my head.
‘Is it always this bad on this road?’ I inquired hoping for a hail mary.
‘Yep’.
——–
Don’t Should Me
‘You should’ve taken 7th Street’, he answered. I’m a poker player and there’s always a 4th and 5th street bet that you called or should have laid it down but when you’re in a hand, you’re down in it. And that’s where we were.
Ginger Morgan, the Director of our foundation, taught me that lesson. There is no ‘should’ in life. And I thought about that after almost getting killed on High Street.
I thought alot about why. Why put myself and moreover and more importantly the lives of my boys at risk?
——–
‘Do you need help?’
The old man asked me. ‘No I don’t’, I replied. And I lead my boys up to the top of the mountain unscathed and untouched.