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-Keith Pelczarski
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Day 11: Eugene to, um, Eugene
Today started with good intentions. Up early, had breakfast at the Keystone Cafe. Went back to the hotel, got packed up and actually hit the road at noon.
The ride out of town was rough. 11th St was super-busy with no shoulder, so I spent a lot of time bouncing around the sidewalk. Ugh.
I pulled into a Shell station, where they told me how crazy I was to ride out on 126 ("crazy" is something I get a lot these days).
Pulling out of the station, I made a wrong turn and ended up out by the Eugene airport. The trusty iPhone helped me create a detour around the reservoir, so I kept pedalling. Kirk Park looked like a good place for a break, which was nice at the time.
The pedals kept turning for another twenty miles, up over Cougar Pass (alt. 769 ft.), and then down the hill where there was a farm selling berries and espresso. I stopped for an iced mocha. When I reached for my wallet, I noticed that my phone was missing,
[Pause for many expletives.]
Luckily, the family that runs the farm was super-cool. Billie Sue in particular was very helpful. She let me use the phone to call AT&T, who enabled the "FamilyMaps" feature on my phone, with which Kerah was able to locate my phone -- back at Kirk Park. Ugh.
As I was on the phone, a passing couple overheard my plight and offered to take me back down the road to Kirk Park. It was a very generous offer, which I was happy to take. We made small talk as the car rolled down the road, but then things got a little weird.
"If you died tonight, do you know what would happen to your soul?"
"Um, no."
"Do you believe in Eternal Life?"
"I'm not really comfortable with this conversation. Could we talk about something else for a while?"
Awkwardly, the conversation continued while we headed back to Kirk Park. Actually, conversation isn't quite accurate. This was a bit more like an inquisition: a friendly, ham-fisted inquisition.
We searched the park for a while with them calling my phone to try to hear the ring. No dice. We then searched the roadside with me hanging my head out the window like a dog. We actually did find a cordless telephone handset that someone had discarded by the side of the road, but didn't spot mine.
"God knows where your phone is. Let's make a deal that if we find your phone that you'll spend your life serving Christ."
Now I'm starting to get paranoid that maybe they found the phone and are just messing with me. This feeling deepened when we got back to the farm and the guy tries calling my number again just to see if it was somehow at the farm. Billie Sue had tried calling the number before but this time my brain almost heard my ringtone playing.
Finally, the good Samaritan inquisitors bade us farewell, and I thanked them profusely for their help and didn't mention how incredibly creeped out the whole thing made me.
Billie Sue let me use her laptop and aircard to check the AT&T FamilyMap again, which still showed my phone near Kirk Park. The service only gives an approximate location, but I figured it was worth another look. Billie Sue's mom Sandy very nicely let me borrow her cell phone since she rarely uses it and she thought it would really help me. So nice.
I made it the 20 miles or so back to the park after 8. It was getting dark, but I looked all over, calling my number with Sandy's phone. No luck. I called Kerah one more time to check the family map This time she said that the circle was located in a different place. It seemed that my phone was on the move. Bummer.
Discouraged, I started down the road again, hoping to make it to the airport where I could catchable taxi before it got totally dark. As I rolled along, I heard a strange chirping sound. After a few moments I realized that it was Sandy's phone. It was Kerah calling me: someone had found the phone while walking their dog! She gave me the contact info, which I called, and Ray offered to drive the phone up the road to me. Yay!
As an extra cherry on top of the kindness of strangers sundae, a logger named Scott stopped by and offered me and my bike a lift in his truck!
I checked in to my hotel after 10, got cleaned up and then had pasta at McMenamins North Bank, where everyone was real nice. When I returned to the hotel, there was karaoke going on in the hotel bar. I've never done karaoke in a hotel bar before, so it seemed like something that I just had to do. I waited my turn for a few songs, then belted out "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by the Clash. Even moshed around with the wireless mic.
It's been fun Eugene, but now I think I should go.
:: Keith 12:08 [link] :: ::