March 17, 2020
French Prairie
Today’s ride
Today is the start of our new normal: life as virtual shut-ins, except for forays out in the world to take a bike ride or hike in a quiet, safe, isolated location. After sitting around the apartment this morning waiting for the day to warm up we throw Rodriguez and the Straggler into the Jetta and drive fifteen miles south to Boones Ferry Marina just across the Willamette from Wilsonville. There’s nothing special about this place, other than that it’s a good spot to park the car for a ride across French Prairie. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, French Prairie represents an interesting piece of Oregon’s modern history. It’s a crescent along the east bank of the Willamette River from about where we’ve parked the car to as far south as Lake Labish, just north of the Salem-Kaiser urbanization. It derives it’s name from the French Canadian fur traders who settled here in the 1830’s, displacing the native Kalapooians who were decimated by disease.
Our ride begins with a flat five mile ride on Butteville Road west along the south bank of the river to Butteville. The road follows a narrow ribbon of a floodplain and at least today carries very little traffic. It’s hard to fathom now, but at one time Butteville was the main port town in the upper Willamette Valley. Today nothing remains but the historic Butteville Store, the oldest continuously operating commercial establishment in Oregon. It’s closed for the season now and now undoubtedly won’t be reopening any time soon, but in a sunnier time we should come back, have an ice cream or deli sandwich, and show you around it’s interior.
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4 years ago
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Just past Butteville is the northern entrance to the bike path through Champoeg State Park, more properly known as the Champoeg State Heritage Area. Now it is a beautiful public greenbelt along the Willamette riverfront, but 170 years ago it was a thriving community and surprisingly was the site of the convention that established the first Oregon provisional government. The town and its industries were destroyed by the devastating flood of 1861, which we can see shocking evidence of today by a high water sign twenty feet up a tree.
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Leaving Champoeg Park, we continue west on quiet farm roads, still following the bottom land near the river. It’s almost flat and heavily agricultural here, primarily planted in hazelnuts, hops and nurseries. There is almost no one on these roads, and it makes for delightful, leisurely cycling. We follow Riverside and then Horseshoe Lake Road until eventually reaching a dead end at tiny San Salvador Boat Landing.
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San Salvador is our turn-back spot on the day’s ride. We make a loop of this end of it, crossing northward across the flats until eventually climbing gently to Saint Paul, the locally famous home of the Saint Paul Rodeo. From there we turn back to Champoeg park along French Prairie Road and then backtrack the rest of the way to the car.
On the way home we make a call to Grassa, a downtown Italian restaurant we’ve never visited before. They, along with all other restaurants on the entire west coast, are closed to sit-down customers; but they’ve got a take-out menu that sounds appealing. When we arrive we pick up our order on the sidewalk, after phoning for it to be delivered through the locked door. It feels like we’re taking part in a drug deal.
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4 years ago
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Looking ahead
Like everyone else, we’re feeling overwhelmed by current events and the rate at which alarming news stories come at us. For the last two weeks we’ve been repeatedly readjusting our plans and outlook in the face of worsening conditions and dire new realities. At our last report, we had scrapped our planned ride through the Texas Hill Country. We were going to mark time locally for a few weeks and then drive down to Saint George for the start of our planned ride across Utah to Albuquerque.
Now though, it looks almost certain that that tour will be called off too. And, with the recent closure of the Canadian border to non-essential travel, I don’t expect that our July tour up the Sunshine Coast will happen either. And I’m becoming more skeptical by the day that we’ll be going on that autumn ride from Copenhagen to Rome that we’ve already purchased our flight for. Maybe the world will be somewhat back to normal by then, but it hardly seems likely any more.
For what it’s worth here’s our latest idea of how we’ll spend the next two months. This will take us up to the first of June, the time we plan to return to Portland. We’ll keep ourselves local, staying at a few Airbnb rentals for a week or two at a time - places in small but not too small communities that have local resources but are rural enough that we can use them as a good base for local day rides and walks. Currently we’re looking at The Dalles, Walla Walla, Pullman, John Day and Yreka as promising spots to park our homeless butts and hunker down for a spell.
As far as this journal is concerned, we’ll just keep it going for as long as there’s enough cycling going that we can feel reasonable posting about our small lives here. It will help us keep our sanity and hopefully provide a diversion for some of you as well. I hope you’ll keep following along, and drop a line from time to time. Us shut-ins need all the company we can get!
Ride stats today: 40 miles, 1,000’
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4 years ago
4 years ago
These are challenging times indeed, especially for wandering souls like you. In the spirit of looking out for all our friends and touring buddies, I venture to suggest that your choice of a “temporary home town” consider the availability/proximity to good medical care, preferably a hospital. While we all practice social distancing to slow the spread of the virus, I believe that at some point we all will become infected. Hopefully we will experience a mild case and quickly recover. Even better, infection may be delayed until a time when therapeutics or vaccines are available. In planning for all contingencies, however, I think it prudent to consider access to good medical care a top priority in your travel plans. Despite this gloomy response, I hope that you enjoy the sparse traffic and unique landscape of “the east side”. Stay healthy and feel free to call or text if you want to discuss more or commiserate about the failure of US pandemic preparedness and/or ineptitude of current administration. Fiveonefive509sevenninesix2. Best, Susan
4 years ago
As for your small town plans, will you stay in places where you can prepare your own food?
There are still a couple restaurants in Silverton that offer take-out, but most are shut.
I suppose there's Domino's and fast food, but bleh!
4 years ago
4 years ago
4 years ago
When this all started, we were 2 months into a 3 month getaway (not a cycling getaway unfortunately), but made the decision to make a run for home before travel conditions got worse. I'm glad we did. I feel much more comfortable in familiar surroundings, especially if there's ever a need to get into a medical facility.
Good luck, stay healthy, and thanks for keeping us entertained!
Bob
4 years ago