Day 21: Gresham,OR to Forest Grove,OR

Miles on the road: 48

Video of the day (Luke and I riding at a very pedestrian pace on the Columbia River bike trail)

# of turns on the route today: a total of 11. Navigating through the Portland area to find the good bike roads is not an easy thing to do. But, we made it! Imagine riding from Stapleton,CO to Highlands Ranch,CO for those of you in Denver. How would you get there on a bike? Run DMC said it best, "It's tricky, tricky, tricky."

Weather: Mostly cloudy, mid 60's/low 70's

Wind: slight headwind from the northwest

Songs stuck in my head: "If this is it" -Huey Lewis & the News

# of days on the road: 21

# of days left: 1

# of miles we've gone so far: appr. 1,560

# of miles left on Hunger Ride 2010: 65

# of times we've eaten at Burgerville in the past 3 days: 5

My current state of mind: The month of June is pretty much all a blurr at this point.

Current state of my legs: Well, I'm not in my 20's and I just don't recover as fast as I used too. That's for sure. But, other than that, I feel like a million bucks.

Caption Contest: We're going to give it one more day before we announce a winner. So, you still have a chance. See yesterday's blog for details.

Flat tire contest: Luke has 4, Tom has 2. Therefore, it's going to take a 69' miracle Met performance for Jones to come back and win this one. It appears that I have it in the bag. But then again, that's what Al Gore thought. And look what happened to him. So, I'm not breaking out the champagne yet. However, I am sleeping with both of my tires tonight just so I know he won't sabbatoge me in my sleep. I'm pretty sure that we'll have a flat tomorrow. It always happens on the last day. Just hopefully not more than one.

PICS FROM YESTERDAY...

I put up a couple picks from yesterday. The first is a pic of the tire that Luke changed when we we're riding on I84 yesterday. As I said in yesterday's blog, it looked like somebody took a chain saw to it. The other is Luke basking in the glory of the days' ride. Ladies, you can look, but please keep your hands off of him. He's busy listening to Taylor Swift right now.

BEST PART OF THE RIDE TODAY....

We rode over a pretty sweet bridge (St. John Bridge) again today. That was cool and not quite as scary as the one from yesterday.

HARDEST PART OF THE RIDE TODAY.....

Right after we crossed the St. John bridge, we had a 2.5 mile climb that gained 964 ft in elevation with an 11% grade. Pretty narly for sure. Luke, riding without a triple, was again a gamer. I actually did not get out of my second ring just so I could "feel his pain."

WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EARN IT TOMORROW.....

If you have nothing better to do tomorrow, go to the website http://www.mapmyride.com/ and map out a route from Forest Grove, OR to Seaside,OR. (We are taking Hwy 26) Make sure that you check the "elevation profile" on the far right. What you'll see is that in 65 miles of riding, we climb almost 4,000 feet. So, we're going to have to earn this thing on our last day. No gimmies on the Hunger Ride.

SHOUT OUTS.....

Once again, for the third Hunger Ride, we received an overwhelming response from the various towns and communitties we've ridden through in terms of accomodations. Tonight, we're staying at the Best Western of Forest Grove,OR. They graciously donated two rooms for us tonight. And, we're also thankful for PF Changs of Portland who donated two tasty entrees to the cause.