The McKenzie River Trail, Oregon And Everything After That

Welcome, friends, to the final Jimerica! blog post!! I apologize for the long break, but my last 2 weeks have been very hectic and involved a lot of driving and catching up with friends. I will do my best to sum them up here quickly.

The last time we were spending time together on this cozy little blog I was having a grand old time in Oakridge, Oregon. I left Oakridge bright and early the next day and made the 60-mile drive to the McKenzie River Trail. The McKenzie River Trail is considered by many to be the #1 mountain biking trail in America. It’s 26 miles of single-track trail along the McKenzie River, which is within the Willamette National Forest. You encounter crazy little blue water ponds, a beautiful lake, big waterfalls, ancient lava flows, all while you ride along the rushing McKenzie River. You’ve read a lot of mountain bike trail descriptions on this blog, so I will keep this one brief. But, don’t let my brevity on this trail make you think it should be skipped. It definitely should not. The ride is, in every way (terrain, views, length), epic. I’m just tired of writing about mountain bike trails. But, I do have a some pictures:

Bikes are loaded on a very cool custom rack. Getting ready to hit the the McKenzie River Trail.

This is the third lake I encountered on this trip called "Clear Lake".

You hear this waterfall long before you see it.

One of 6 or 7 bridges you cross on this trail

The "Blue Pool"

There isn't a town here to speak of. I stayed at a place called the McKenzie Mountain Resort that was pretty much abandon except for a dedicated housekeeper that gave me an excellent deal. You can find food and beer, but it's a bit of work. Best bet is to bring your own:

Thank you, Tim Z for the suggestion.

The morning after my McKenzie ride I set sail for the Oregon coast by way of Eugene. I spent a bit of time in Eugene, trying to catch up with an old friend, but schedules and dog-health issues intervened to confound our many attempts. So, Anji, I hope to catch you next time.

After Eugene, I spent an evening on the Oregon coast and then, the next morning, headed to Corvallis, Oregon to see my friend Lisa Matthews and her husband Kirk. Lisa and I are old friends from high school. We were part of a small circle of friends back then. It was great catching up with her and her husband and meeting their awesome and absolutely enormous dog, Leroy Jenkins. I had no bike ride waiting for me in the morning, and Lisa and I hadn't seen each other in three years. So, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly:

Get a load of this dog:

This isn't an optical illusion.

Lisa and Kirk:

Lisa and Kirk

After leaving Lisa and Kirk's, I made a quick stop at a skate park my friend Tim Zimmerman had informed me about (more about Tim later). I lived on a skateboard for about 8 years of my life and though I haven’t been on a skateboard for about 10 years, places like this are still really cool to me. A couple shots:

WJ Skatepark. Eugene, Oregon

WJ Skatepark. Eugene, Oregon

After these shots, I made my way to Seattle, Washington to see Shannon O’Brien. Shannon and I have known each other since Kindergarten (I’m just now, at the age of 43, realizing that it’s not ‘Kindergarden’). I hadn’t seen Shannon in over 20 years. It was great catching up with her and meeting her family. Shannon, her husband, and I, didn't stop talking for two days. On the second day, we did a brewery tour in Seattle (Jimerica! all the way!). Here are some shots:

Populuxe Brewing Company. These are actual people. Seattle is crazy.

Shannon doing a proper Vanna White

They mean business in these here parts, friends.

Here's another picture that makes me smile.

Shannon, husband Jonny, son Oliver, daughter Maggie.

I had also hoped to catch up with Tim Zimmerman, but that wasn’t in the cards. Tim and I taught at Woodward Skateboarding Camp back in the late 80s. He was a huge help to me on this trip. He’s now a professional photographer that specializes in snowboarding, skateboarding, and mountain bike photography. Many of the destinations I hit for mountain biking were based on Tim’s recommendations and he was also able to direct me to good bike shops throughout my trip. So, Thanks Tim!! Unfortunately, we weren’t able to catch up in Seattle. Next time, bro. I'm sorry I didn't plan better.

After spending a couple days with Shannon’s family, I had to hit the road. I made the 2600 mile journey from Seattle to Bethlehem, PA in just over 3 days. I passed a lot of places I would have liked to visit (Yellowstone, Glacier, cousin Helen), but, again, next time.

So, what’s next for Jimerica!? Over the next month, I’ll be moving to Philly and getting ready for med school, which will begin in early August. I’ll be attending The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM). I’ll do 4 years of med school at PCOM followed by 3 to 5 years of residency in who-knows-where.

Now, we come to the Jimerica! Awards Ceremony! Hit the music!!

Over the course of this trip I posted quite a bit on The Facebooks. Some of my posts were trivia questions that bestowed upon the person with the first correct answer a Grand Jimerica! Title and absolutely nothing else. Here is a list of those Jimerican Heros:

Josh Strub - The Jimerica! Fan of the Undisclosed and Frankly Random Amount of Time Award. Answer: the left end of my handle bar is what left the imprint in my chest. Well done, sir. Well done. Only a man who has valiantly fallen off his bike many many times could have answered this question so specifically.

Mike Kotasek - The Jimerica! Golden Exclamation Point Award. Answer: The Great Salt Lake. Bill Bole also received a “Most Honorable Mention” on this one for posting the video of the Band of Horses song “The Great Salt Lake” as a response to this question. Fine effort, both of you gentlemen. An effort so very fine is rarely seen in this world.

Ray Carlin - The Jimerica! Summer of Haight Lovefest Hippy Dippy Award. Ray, my erstwhile boss, correctly guessed that I had posted a photo of where Charlie Manson had lived in San Francisco. But, to be fair, Ray’s response to almost every question posed to him is “Charles Manson”. You were born for this question, Ray.

Rob Flowers - The Jimerica! "This is like Christmas in December" Award. Rob, I’m sure, is almost as proud of this award as he is to be Jimerica!’s brother-in-law. Answer: Yosemite.

Anji Marth – Anji became an officially deputized Jimerican! She may now proudly wear an exclamation point shaped badge made of pure golden bologna. Congratulations Anji! Answer: sea lions in the tide pool.

Mike Baker – winner of The Jimerica! Lifetime Movie Achievement Award. Answer: Bad Jimmy’s Brewery. Mike nailed this one on his very first try. A regular Jimiracle given the vast number of breweries in Seattle.

Two more “Most Honorable Mentions” go to Mary McCauley, and Mark Rossi for your very many wildly (profoundly, even, in some cases) incorrect answers.

So, that's it folks. Thank you all for reading. And an extra big thanks to all of you that kept up with me on Facebook. Having you guys along for the ride made the trip even more fun. Jimerica!

Oakridge, Oregon

Jimerica! is freaking exhausted. I just finished my longest ever day on a mountain bike. I was so tired when I finished, I considered skipping the beer and burger and going right to bed. But I persevered and now I have a second wind and will try to write a blog post about Oakridge, Oregon. 

There are really only two places you absolutely have to know about in Oakridge. Once you do, everything else will take care of itself.

First, the bike shop:

It was pouring rain when I pulled into Oakridge for the first time. I then executed my well-honed routine of finding a bike shop and then the local pub. So, my first stop was The Willamette Mountain Mercantile where I reserved a spot on a shuttle to Alpine Trail for the next morning. I was worried we'd get rained out, but they informed me that it pretty much rains every morning and evening here and that the trails were fine to ride. My bike had been out in the elements quite a bit lately, so I brought it in with me and asked the service guy to give it a little attention. He lubed up the chain, got the shocks to the right pressure, and then refused to accept money for the service. Given they are the only shop in town, they don’t have to be this cool. But, they are. They also had a couple suggestions on where to stay. It was pouring out and Jimerica! isn’t a fan of setting up camp in the rain. Anyhow, I’d been camping for most of the last 6 weeks, so a real roof sounded excellent.

The second place is the bar:

I then hit the local pub which, Jimerica! was happy to discover, is also a small brewery. The Brewers Union Local 180 is very much the social hub of Oakridge as well as a place all the tired riders gathered at night. More about the Brewers Union later.

So, my next day was set, and it went something like this:

At 9:30AM I was at the bike shop to grab the shuttle to the Alpine Trail.  Alpine Trail is the most popular trail in Oakridge and is considered one of the best mountain bike trails in the United States. Here's an exciting photo of what one of these shuttles look like:

Alpine is about 15 miles of single track, starting above 4000 feet and ending at around 1000 feet. You start with a pretty steady climb from the drop off point. They had some snow here a few days ago and a little of it remained:

It was pretty cool encountering snow on a ride in mid June.

After about of mile this, I came to "the meadow". The shuttle driver really talked this place up, and for good reason. I should have taken a few more shots here, but I was fixated on the cool trail. I always notice when I'm riding something that is very different to any other trail I've ever been on, and this short section was definitely that. This grass will be over 3' tall in August:

 You then drop back into the trees and soon encounter trails like this:

And then you get to spots like this, where it seems like the trail is beginning to change, and you have no idea what you're going to encounter:

And then you ride along a tunnel-like trail through heavy woods until you see a light up ahead and then find yourself here:

You then ride a step hillside trail with beautiful views for a bit:

And then back into the trees on a part of the trail the locals refer to as "jedi" because you feel like you're flying through the ewok forest in Star Wars:

Jimerica! is good at getting the pretty pictures. However, there are plenty of challenging parts on the alpine trail as well. Usually, when I run into a nasty section, I'm not thinking about the blog, but rather my face and bones. I did get this shot, which doesn't look like much, but is, in fact, a switchback turn with a 4' drop on a steep slope. So, if you screw the turn up and fall, you won't stop falling for a very long time. Jimerica! valiantly inched down this turn on his butt: 

It's worse than it looks.

OK, so enough about mountain biking. Let's talk about the Brewers Union Local 180, shall we? We shall, declareth Jimerica! So, quickly, about Brewers Local, half the beer they offer is made by them and offered only on cask pull. They have 6 cask pull selections (that's 5 more than any other bar I've ever visited). I am not normally a fan of the cellar temp cask pull type beers, but I liked theirs. They also offer 6 selections from other local breweries in the normal cold draft style. Want to see a lot of cask pumps? Yes? OK:

Cask Pumps at The Brewers Union Local 180

After Myers Flat, I was ready to put my phone down for a while. Taking pictures and notes and chatting with a person while sort-of interviewing them is something Jimerica! needed a break from. So, you'll get the stories without the names or the pictures. I'll give you a quick glimpse of the night after my Alpine ride. Prepared for the glimps, Jimericanos? Ready or not..

It was early evening after my Alpine ride when I entered Brewers Local. It had started to rain again. I sat near the end of the bar to the left of a man and woman I'd met the previous day. I don't remember the woman's name, but she was very nice. The man's name was Jim, and he was the town's mayor. Together, we worked on a crossword puzzle for about an hour. This sort of mindful mindlessness is oddly comforting after a long day riding. 

After we finished the crossword, I ordered some food and struck up a conversation with two gentleman siting to my left. It was an older gentleman and his son. They were on a week long fishing trip together. They were traveling in a big RV. They lived in the bay area, but the older gentleman also spent time at another home he had in Key West. We talked about the fishing in Oakridge and the people we've met. About 20 minutes later, we had gotten onto the subject of the older man's upbringing and the long process he went through that ended in him leaving the Mormon faith in his 50s. He owned a successful management consulting company and was now semi-retired. I'd put him in his later 60s. He has 7 kids, all successful. He said that the hardest part of leaving the faith was how hurt many of his friends and family were by the news. But, he said he'd been living a lie for as long as he could remember and just couldn't do it any longer. Now, I don't want you to think this man was in any way somber. He wasn't at all. You could tell he loved spending time with his son, and in Key West, and pretty much every day that came along. You meet some really good people on the road. People that you feel fortunate to have had a conversation with. This guy was one of them.

AND, there would be another on this very night. I was thinking about going back to my hotel when the father and son hit the road, but then a man that looked and sounded like John Goodman walked in. He was a defense lawyer that had done his undergrad in English Literature and Poetry studies. I'd put him in his early 50s. He was on his way to a conference and stopped at Oakridge for the evening. He kept his glasses at the tip of his large nose on his large face on his big head and they did not move. He asked me about my trip, and then why I wanted to do such a trip, and then laughed and recited a few lines of a poem, and then laughed some more. He said he loved Yeats and said my story reminded him of the Poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus". He said somebody had made a song out of the poem, and then, leaning against the bar, began singing the song loudly. This man was blogging GOLD.  Later, we got onto the subject of Cormac McCarthy, which was enough to keep us occupied until the bar closed (which here is the late late hour of 11PM). 

It's the people you meet out here that makes the trip. The riding helps, the parks like Yosemite help, the brew pubs help, the ocean side wineries help, but it's the people that make the trip. 

As I finish this post, I am now sitting in Eugene, Oregon looking forward to seeing my old friend, Anji Marth. But that will be a future post. I hope you are all doing super great. Thank you for reading!

Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California

Sometimes in Jimerica!, rainy days are welcome. It gives me a guilt free day to sit, write, and relax. Today is such a day. So, instead of being out on my mountain bike, I am sitting in the back of a little pub hoping to catch up on blogging. Let’s see how this goes. Wish me luck.

When last we spoke, I had just arrived to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This park has 19 of the 25 tallest trees on earth, and I visited many of them. A few days ago, I had my hand on a tree that was over 360 feet tall, 53 feet around, and about 2000 years old. I found that most people who approached the tree did something similar to what I did. They approached slowly, looking it up and down, trying to take it in, then walked up and put their hand on it. Some said, “hello” or “hey there”. 

One of the first monster trees I met. Jimerica! says hello, monster tree!

See my camera sitting on the tree?

There are many “groves” here, which is what they call small sections of the old growth forest, full of these massive trees. There is also an area within the park called “Rockefeller Forest” which is the largest old growth costal redwood forest in the world. It’s dim and cool in here, even at noontime.

See the Jimericycle?

Always shady.

You see a lot of stuff like this you can walk right through

Just driving the road through Humboldt, called “The Avenue of Giants”, is an amazing experience.

This is the road off of Avenue of Giants that leads to Rockefeller Forest.

The Avenue of Giants

I camped at a great campsite, called “Burlington”. It was also home to the park’s visitor center. They had daily guided nature walks and entertainment on their stage every evening. I did some riding here, but mostly I hiked. In every other place I’d been, riding was great because you could get to the next cool view quickly. However, here, what you wanted to see was on top of you and around every corner. So, walking slowly is the way to do it here.  Here’s a shot of my campsite (exciting!):

Burlington Campsite, Humboldt Redwood Forest.

OOOOH?!? Did you notice my swank new digs? Yes, Little Ol' Tenty bit the dust. Dealing with the oversized air mattress was a lot for my little old home, but then a rainy and windy night came along and finished Ol' Tenty off. So, Jimerica! now has a nice new and bigger tent. Can this post get even more exciting?!?! Let’s find out together. 

I met my camp neighbors, Gabby and Tyler, sitting on this big ol' tree stump. Tyler was on his way west to start a new job. I believe Gabby said she was a camp counselor for kids with autism. They both recently graduated from the University of New England:

There are stumps like this all over the campground. They have ladders carved into them so you can climb up.

I met some cool people in the crazy little town of Myers Flat, California. First was Britney. When I first met Britney, she was standing in the middle of the coffee shop she worked in changing her clothes. She did this skillfully enough to not expose anything, sort of like a strip tease. I found myself to be very patient through this process, and then bought some coffee. I would see Britney in two subsequent outfits before the end of this day. Britany moved here from Idaho 4 years ago. She also has an awesome dog, 'Sissy'.

Britney at The Myers Flat Saloon

Britney's dog, Sissy. Who's a good doggy?!?!?!

Then, of course, I met most of the staff at the local Saloon. Most notably, I met the owner, Bill Meagher. Bill owns this Saloon and, I get the feeling, about half the town. He's owned the Myers Flat Saloon for 48 years. He is 91 years old. He is 100% as cool as he looks.

Bill Meagher. Owner of the Myers Flat Saloon. This is his seat near the bar.

As soon as the bartenders, Laurel and Michele, confirmed that I wasn't a cop. They agreed to let me get a shot of them, on the condition that I was in the photo. This flies in the face of the Jimerica! Code. But, honestly, what the hell is the Jimerica! Code? It sounds made up. So, I jumped behind the bar. Please appreciate the wild boar overhead:

You've never seen a place like this. I'm here with Michele (left), and Laurel. You may remember Laurel from my previous post.

I didn't get to learn much about Michele, besides the fact that she's here visiting from Las Vegas. Laurel moved here 2.5 years ago. She's into yoga and has made some of her own videos, but hasn't decided if she wants to market them yet. Oh, and she is a master of analogies and has a very appropriate tattoo for a woman named Laurel.

I also met Carrie, who likes a guy named Fernando a LOT.  Carrie was originally from Minnesota, then lived in Washington State for 6 years, and has been here for 6 months. Did I mention that she really likes a guy named Fernando? More on that later. Here she is doing her best Blue Steel (see: Zoolander). The wild boar is also doing its best Blue Steel:

Carrie!

And then Sweet Pika. She's lived here for a year. She's from Chicago and we discovered that we've both backpacked Guatemala. She's also backpacked Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. And she has an interesting tattoo that I did not ask her to explain. Pika:

Pika

Oh, and then the people on my side of the bar. There was Dave and Chris. Dave has been coming to the Redwood Run since it's first year in 1980 when it only cost $10. Now, it's over $200. 

Dave and Chris

Then I met James and Linda. This was their first trip to the Redwood Run. James wore a leather biker jacked covered in patches that he said were a sort of history of the places he's been and the things he's done. James is 71. An activity that he was really into for about 48 years was drag racing. 

James and Linda. Jimerica! loves meeting folks like this.

A few of the many places he's been.

He worked as an EMT for a time

And spent 48 years drag racing

And is planning on getting as much as he can out of this life.

Well, it's about time I let you all get back to your lives. But, before we go, I promised to get back to some tattoo related items. So, here are some tattoos:

I told you Carrie really liked Fernando:

This is the right tattoo for a woman named Laurel:

I didn't inquire about Pika's tattoo beyond asking to get a shot of it:

And that's it, folks! I hope you enjoyed this post. Humboldt and Myers Flat were a blast. As I noted before, I'm now sitting in my next destination which I can say has some of the most fun mountain biking I've yet to do on this trip. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow, but I may stick around for another day. Oh, the flexibility of Jimerica! Thanks for reading!