April 21, 2000 Friday
We ate breakfast at the retirement manor with Jerry and Dorothy at 8:00 AM. Jerry and Dorothy were going on the retirement center bus to Newport at 9:00 AM. Immediately after breakfast Mary Kay and I got on the bicycle and headed for Aloha, to visit with our son Mark and Lyuda. We traveled on highway 219. It is a good thing that the road was very level for the first 25 miles because my legs and Mary Kay's legs were toast from riding the previous day. In addition, at times my left leg was in pain because of the muscle that I pulled as we arrived in Kaiser. Any way we had to take a number of rests to get to Newberg. We had picked two routes to Aloha and we missed the junction we could have turned to take the other route, as we were past it before we even knew we were near the turn off. We missed the turn off because we were too tired from the previous days ride.
We had planned to eat something in Newberg but our route through the town did not pass any restaurants and we found our selves 2 miles out of town before we knew what had happened. We did take a rest at a park next to the Presbyterian Church that Jerry Emerson helped build. Mary Kay commented that when the church was built the entire area was WAY out in the country. Now, apartments and houses surround the church.
As we left the park and turned north on highway 219 the road looked level but it was sure hard peddling. After a mile or so we came to the start of a hill in the road. We stopped to rest again before starting up the hill and I glanced at my altimeter. We had gained almost 200 feet in elevation on that level stretch of road. While we were stopped, we ate two oranges that Dorothy had insisted that we take with us. It was the only food we would eat between Kaiser, and Aloha. We really needed to eat food in Newberg but we blew it big time. That little hill that we started up after our lunch was one that went on for quite a distance. Most of the way we were in our granny gears and because we both had very tired legs, most of the time we were in the lowest or second lowest gear. It was also necessary to stop frequently because our legs were so tired. When we reached the top we had climbed 1190 feet, all but about 100 feet on this little hill that never once went down for even a short distance.
The trip down was much easier and also much faster. We never dropped below 20 miles an hour all the way to the bottom. Mary Kay was really very good in that she did not use the brakes very much. At the bottom of the hill we headed onto highway 210 at Scholls, OR. We stayed on highway 210 until we came to Clark Hill Rd. This road had one dump truck after another on it because there was a quarry located off of this road. We headed up the road and came to a steep but short hill, which we were too tired to ride up so we got off of the bike and walked up the hill. At the top of the hill, I told Mary Kay to shift into the middle chain ring from the granny chain ring. Instead, she shifted all the way past the big chain ring and the chain jumped off and jammed between the big chain ring and the sprocket to the front chain. The front derailleur is out of adjustment and this happens quite easily but it is a real pain to get the chain back on the sprockets. She made this mistake because she was so tired and had not had any food to eat. I shouted because I was tired and had not had any food to supply energy. We got the bike back together and headed down the hill. We crossed a main road and went up a second smaller hill. As soon as we crossed the top of this hill we came to highway 10 or Farmington Rd. We turned east and headed for Mark's. At 219th street we came upon a bike path, which we used until 185th street.
As we approached 185th street, I told her that there was a Shari's restaurant on this corner. I then told Mary Kay to leave the bike path and get in the traffic lane that would allow her to make a left turn. Mary Kay kept going straight. Finally, I told her to stop. It took us forever to get across Farmington Rd into the parking lot of the Shari's restaurant. At the restaurant we shared a potato nachos. After eating this we both felt better. When we left the restaurant, Mary Kay did not want to ride the bike across the street so she said she would walk across the road and I should bring the bike by myself. I crossed the street and looked for Mary Kay and she was at the corner waiting for the traffic light to change so she could get across the street. I headed for the corner to pick her up in a bank parking lot and noticed that a bolt was partially out of its bolthole on the front sprocket. When I stopped to pick up Mary Kay I checked this sprocket and found that 3 bolts were missing, 1 bolt was tight and one was 1/2 way out. I tightened the loose bolt and we headed for Mark's. As soon as we arrived at Mark's, I took off my bike shorts and put on long pants and Mark took me to a hardware store that had lots of metric bolts. I found replacement bolts for the ones that were lost, purchased them and we went back to Mark's. I installed the bolts with some medium locktite, which I hope will keep them from coming out again. We were lucky that we got into Mark's by 3:30 PM on a weekday and Mark knew of a store that had metric bolts.
After fixing the bike, Mary Kay took a shower and then I took a shower and then we ate an excellent supper cooked by Lyuda.