Bike Odyssey 2014 – Day 30 (June 15) – Coffee It Is

A month and 5500 miles into our trip, we set off from Florence, Oregon, in a mild drizzle, which soon gave up and left us heading inland in – at last – a pleasant breeze. No more freezing wind! My left-hand wing mirror gave up the ghost overnight and will no longer stay in any position at all. Enter the gaffer-tape doctor himself. Even gaffer-tape couldn’t entirely solve the problem, and although my right-hand wing mirror is excellent, I don’t want to bike further without a proper left-hand one, which Portland will provide – after I’ve spent about 36 hours in the prone position, a much needed rest. Kara and Victor’s house is gloriously full of young persons – 5, in fact – and food, and sweet peace, in what seems like an exceptionally lovely city on first sight. Rather thorough first sight, because I got lost (which I mercifully don’t too often do) and I had to learn to navigate downtown, full of one-way streets, before I found my path.

Before reaching Portland we stopped at ‘Coffee It Is,’ an unprepossessing roadside venue next to a Dairy Queen, on Route 18. Inside was a sweet Ali Baba’s cave of local cookery: miniature home-made pies – we ate one between us and brought two to our Portland hosts – and the best lattes, Joe declared, that we’ve sampled anywhere so far. Oregon, so green, so fruitful, revels in the delicious tastes it makes available. Another reason to love Oregon. These surprises, like ‘Coffee It Is,’ have been the joy of the trip, along with the strange folk we meet. They range from the man who insisted that I was Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac) and demanded to know what Stevie Nicks had been like in bed (I got a blank stare when I replied, ‘Can you spell ‘narcissistic’?’), to the woman who accosted Joe at a Motel 6, declaring that she was Olivia Newton John and requiring Joe to close his eyes. He did and she gave what Joe says was a very plausible impression of ONJ singing. But although she looked rather like her, she wasn’t Olivia (I rather hoped she might be), come down in the world. That’s Joe’s story and he’s sticking to it.