June 22 - 12 miles west of Walla Walla...

[Adele]

To the congregation of the Assemblies of God church 12 miles west of Walla Walla, Washington: Greetings.

We are unrolling our sleeping bags beneath your covered walkway behind your main sanctuary building. We are grateful that, being a rural little community, you organize no Friday night bingo or youth group or potluck shenanigans and your premises appear vacant enough to entice 2 weary travellers.

Whew, did Brock and I ever luck out on this one. With dark ominous clouds closing in fast behind us, we were getting anxious to find a place to bed down for the night, and since there are no campgrounds in these here parts, we had been looking in vain for a good place to wild camp, but all the land is privately owned ranch or farmland.

Then, about a mile from rejoining the highway, we spotted this church, and took shelter just in time as the rain hurled down in earnest. It's been steadily pouring now for 2 hours and we're as cozy as can be.

In spite of our plans to take it easy today, we ended up riding about 75 miles. How could we NOT, when an immense tailwind practically carried us out through the Columbia Gorge? You can't say no to that wind. Thank God we were riding with it; we had to turn south a few times, rather than move east, and it was all I could do to fight my bike through that wind.

We met a father and son bicycling duo this morning as we devoured sausages at the only store/restaurant in Patterson, WA (it boasted 3 shelves of canned food and a kitchen where they deep fried or microwaved your food to order).
The father had apparently been one of the first to cycle across the country with Adventure Cycling's routes in the 1970s; now, he and his just graduated from college son ("and he's employed!!") are doing a trip together to Montana. This was the first time the 2 had bike toured since the son was 12 years old; his parents had, before then, done many ambitious trips with their young offspring.

There's a point to this anecdote. I began to wonder how things would have been different if my parents had been crazy people on bikes hauling me around the globe---would I still enjoy cycle touring? Cycling, and touring in particular, has played such a huge role in defining me as an adult. It has given me an independence and self-confidence that I only dreamed of possessing as a child. If this had been my childhood norm, would I think that it sucked by the time I reached adolescence? In this family's case, it seemed as if the son was going on this trip to humor his dad---he didn't seem overly excited or to take nearly as much ownership or enjoyment in the adventure as his father was. I'm fascinated by the way each generation reacts to the previous one and in the process eventually rejects or embraces the example set by their predecessors.

For example, I grew up being fed tempeh and seaweed and miso soup and now I have fully embraced this into my culinary repertoire after a brief infatuation with cheese quesadillas. Wait, I still love cheese quesadillas.

I'm sure many of you can relate to this phenomenon.

And now, I raise my almost empty 16 oz. can of Budweiser, King of Beers, to you all in farewell.

Prost.