At last...

...the long awaited blog update that our thousands of daily readers have been waiting for!
Here's my attempt at a quick synopsis of the past bit of time:
Some more rain, some more cold, some more biking south. Started to forget what dry feels like, packing up wet tents in the mornings, unpacking wet clothes, putting on wet socks and shoes. North Bend was filled with adventures: We ate the most delicious pumpkin cheesecake ever, a huge treat considering we had been living largely off of sandwiches...the easiest way to get all of our food groups without a stove...hummus avocado tomato onion sandwiches, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, salami sandwiches, tofurkey sandwiches...
I had an eye infection, for which I finally went to the doctor in North Bend, where they gave me free samples of eye drops and charged me an arm and a leg to look at it through a microscope for 30 seconds and write some stuff down.
We had our first meeting with cops, also in North Bend, since we started this time around, for sleeping in the wrong place. They ran our IDs and let us stay there and sleep. It's amazing how much traveling with bikes full of stuff allows you to get away with. What worked: us with our bikes and gear explaining that we're biking down the coast and needed a place to sleep. What wouldn't work: us without bikes and gear explaining that we just needed a place to sleep. What occasionally works: walking into restaurants, dirty and smelly with helmets on, explaining that we're on a bike trip and we're low on funds and asking for free food. What wouldn't work: someone walking into a restaurant, dirty and smelly, explaining that they are low on funds and need to feed their family and asking for free food. As if we deserve places to sleep and food to eat more than other people because we are "doing something"...
We met George around Gold Beach and caught a ride in his truck to Lilia's parents' place, which is incredibly beatiful and filled with luxuries like beds, showers, kitchen, laundry. We did a little work, a lot of reading, some playing cards, and Lilia introduced me to the joys of tea with milk and honey.
We are currently in Ashland and will be here for the weekend. Dumpstered pastries galore, 4 jars of free almond butter from the Maranatha distribution center, and hoping to hit Dagoba tonight...we also went to Red Robin in Medford, where my childhood dream of becoming the giant red bird was relived.
We saw a movie last night called "In the Valley of Elah". Depressing and powerful, well worth seeing...
After the weekend, back to Lilia's parents' place to do some work for a while before we head south.
Love,
Kaite