Kelley Point

June 15, 2023

We’re both up early again - around four - but it’s much better than yesterday. I feel reasonably clear-headed and my eyes don’t have quite the burning, gritty feeling they’ve had ever since the flight. I typically have a pretty terrible first week after a flight home but this time is exceeding expectations so far.

Rachael’s got an 8:00 appointment over at the Kaiser on Interstate. She could bike over easily enough, but I need to make a run to the storage unit with the car anyway so I volunteer to drop her off on the way. At the storage unit I drop off one of the Bike Friday suitcases - the one for Rachael’s bike, because she’s taking her Bike Friday to Canada when we go so this suitcase won’t be needed until September - and pick up my sandals and a suitcase with my clothes in it, looking forward to having a different shirt to wear than the three I traveled with for the last month.

Afterwards I drop the car off at the apartment and walk over to Cafe Umbria, only four blocks away, for a coffee date with my sister Elizabeth. There’s a lot to talk about and catch up on since we saw each other last, but after an hour and a half it’s time to move on. We part with plans for the three of us to have dinner together next week sometime.

Rachael and I are going our own way today. She’s off to Oregon City for a ride down the Trolley Trail, and she’ll return later with the exciting news that she saw a rabbit, and a deer standing in the middle of the bike path. My plan is to bike north to the Columbia Slough and Kelley Point, taking my time and hoping to see a new bird species or two.

First though, I’m off to the east side on an errand for my best friend. She’s pretty unhappy about being back on her Surly Straggler, and is rueing the fact that she won’t get her preferred bike back for another ten days. One thing that might help is if she gets the Straggler fitted with a suspension seatpost to smooth out the shocks like she has on her BF, and after calling around she finds exactly one Cane Creek Silk in stock at the bike stores she phones up: at River City Bicycles, over on Belmont.

Here’s something new since I’ve biked through here last: a bike/pedestrian bridge across the Banfield Expressway at 7th. The Expressway splits East Portland and really constrains north-south travel by bike. This is a great addition to the infrastructure, and makes me feel better about the city.

The new bridge was named in honor of our congressman, who for decades has been one of the nation’s most passionate advocates for cycling and pedestrian issues.

Mission accomplished. At least the first half - now I just have to install it, a task waiting for one of the rainy days due to arrive soon.

It’s a good ride out to the Columbia Slough and Kelley Point, but birdcount-wise it’s a bust. There aren’t many birds around today - at least not in the heart of a warmish, windy day. I see a few of the usuals - herons, great egrets, ospreys - but nothing new.

That’s not quite true. I do see the two new species I was specifically hoping for: violet-green swallows and cliff swallows - but they’re all swooping across the sky too quickly for any kind of identifiable shot. I’m patient - I can afford to wait for a time when I come across the violet-green ones perched on a wire, as they will do - or a cliff swallow coming in for a landing at its nest in a cliff or beneath an overhang.

Still, the cliff swallows are a disappointment because I really expected to see them on this ride. There’s a pedestrian/bike bridge across the slough that a large colony of them nests under that I’ve known of for years, and in season I can always count on seeing them here. As I do today - the sky is filled with fifty or more of them zipping around, but there’s no vantage point I can get to and see the overhang they nest beneath. I make a half-hearted attempt at catching one on the fly, but don’t come home with anything shareable.

Biking south along Willamette Bluff though, I see a thrush-like bird pecking away at something in a tree and stop for a quick shot. I’m not surprised it’s an American robin, but just so I don’t come home with an empty creel I’ll include it.

I don’t take many robin shots, but I like this one.

And then, rounding the bend just past the university I come to a familiar profile I haven’t seen lately. Now that’s definitely worth stopping for.

For as wet as Oregon’s spring has been, I’m surprised there’s not more snow on the mountain still. It’s going to look pretty bare by the end of the summer, I fear.

We’re eating in tonight, taking turns sitting at our ridiculously small excuse for a table. She’s having a TV dinner and I have sausge and eggs. No sense wasting a good restaurant meal on us when we’re both about to doze off.

Afterwards I have an Apocolypse IPA I picked up at the Ten Barrel bar just around the corner, read some blogs, and crash on the couch. When I come to Rachael’s out for the night, so I grab the camera to take a shot of the sunset to show her when she comes to again.

Our studio apartment has its drawbacks, but there are a few plusses too.

Today's ride: 28 miles (45 km)
Total: 58 miles (93 km)

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Kelly Iniguez
did you purchase both of your Bike Fridays the same year? For some reason I think you've owned BF's before? How many miles do you suppose you have on them? I'm sure you've heard my often repeated story of when your bike is paid for - when you've bicycled a mile for every dollar you spent, then it is paid for, and you are allowed to buy a new bicycle, guilt free!
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonWe’re both on our second BF’s. We got the first in 2009, and the 2nd in 2018. I have around 30 thousand miles on mine (nearly all in Europe), and Rachael’s probably got more than that because she rides it more when we’re home. I almost exclusively use the Rodriguez when we’re home or have the car with us.
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10 months ago

Graham FinchGreat to see you're posting about your continuing exploits, however local they may be. Portland... are you thinking of calling in on anyone while there?
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10 months ago