Chuck Norris' Beard?

So while I was still in Portland, I went to meet Brendan for lunch. We were going to meet up at his office and then head out from there. While I was riding around the office park I came up to a speed bump. Now, I just want to point out that this was not the first speed bump I had seen that day in that office park. Everyone of them up to this point had had a break in the middle that I could speed through without any problem. This one didn't, but I didn't see that until it was nearly too late to brake. Also, this was a particularly aggressive speed bump. So of course, the bottom of my Harley scrapped against the top of the aggressive speed bump and as I continued passed it I could hear what sounded like a piece of metal scrapping along the pavement. Thinking that something very bad had happened, I pulled over and found that my stand was dragging along. It turns out that the spring that holds the stand up had come off. I was able to recover the spring but had trouble figuring out where to attach it on the frame of the bike. The fact the Brendan was the one holding the bike up didn't help. He kept commenting on how heavy the thing was and how he wasn't sure he could hold it upright much longer. This was all happening as I had my head under the bike trying to find the point where the spring attached. Very nerve wracking. We decided to give it a rest while we ate lunch at this really good Vietnamese place. I had pho. Delicious. When we got back to the bike we still couldn't figure out the spring so we taped the stand up and I headed off the the local Harley dealership to let them take a look at it. Naturally, they were closed. Go figure. I went back to Char and Tom's place and this time Char helped out by holding the bike upright while I climbed underneath. Char is a fit person but by no means a large muscular woman so I was just as worried. Fortunately for me, I was looking under there at a different angle than before and was able to quickly attach the spring. Problem solved.

Later on Brendan joked that had he dropped the bike he was sure that my beard would have taken the fall leaving me unscathed. While it's true that my beard is coming in nicely, I'm not sure it's ready for that kind of work just yet. It's not a "Chuck Norris" beard yet. Maybe in another week or so.

After the family dinner that night, I planned on meeting Brendan for lunch the next day and then heading out of town. On my way to lunch while sitting at a stoplight the guy in a truck in front of me decided he was in the wrong lane and needed to back up to get in the right lane. He crashed right into me and my front wheel went right under his bumper. My fender got all bent up and wheel rim was slightly bent. After talking to the driver, his boss and the Harley dealership (which was now open) we figured out that all I really needed was a new tire. The fender and rim could deb bent back into shape to the point where I couldn't even tell there was ever any damage. A much better situation than I had expected. And while they were putting on the new tire, I was still able to have lunch with Brendan. Not bad.

After lunch I headed south on I5 for a bit (trying to dodge the rain again) before cutting west to the coast on highway 20. I did well avoiding the rain to that point. I was riding through a spruce forrest thinking about how you never small the forrest in a car and how nice it was when I came over the top of the costal range and right into a thick fog bank. It wasn't really raining, just misting. I was basically riding through a big rain cloud. It was enough to soak me through in about an hour. I had hopped to make it to the coast and then go south for a bit before stopping for the night. As it turned out, I made it to Toledo, OR, just a few miles from the coast. I was just to cold and wet to want to go any further. Toledo is a small town and at first I couldn't find any hotels. I asked at a gas station and the eventually found the one and only hotel in town. It was some little local place but the room was ok. It was dry and warm so it was awesome as far as I was concerned. The Mexican restaurant next door turned out the be really good too. The first guy I talked too in there didn't speak any english which I took to be a good sign. I had the chile verde, bits of pork in a green chili sauce which was great. Back at the hotel, I hung up all my clothes in the vain hope that they would dry over night and be ready for tomorrow. Sorry there aren't any pictures today, I was too miserable to take any. Time to sleep.


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Location:Oregon Coast