une aventure à vélo.

yesterday was one of the sunniest days i've ever seen in portland. it felt more like a fall day in tahoe with that really intense, golden afternoon sun and a very crisp, strong breeze in the air that swirls up all the dead leaves. so i thought what better way to celebrate after completely a busy monday of classes than to go for a bike ride.

i departed from my house and went up a street i rarely venture to, for what i was about to find out, good reason. i was humming along on a sometimes steep but always uphill street when i started to get into suburb hell. you know the kind with all the houses that look similar and are perfectly groomed but there are no people in sight. i had my basic directional instincts to head north and then circle back to my house. the only thing is that so many of the streets in this part of town are dead ends. i picked one that seemed to go for a long while. this long while ended up being a series of three large dips with rather steep uphills.

then i ended up circling around on tiny little streets on top of the hill. i'm sure there are great views of portland and since it was so clear, mt. hood and mt. st. helens, but there are just too many gosh darn trees up there (disclaimer: i like trees and would never harm them, unless i needed firewood). so i eventually got back to a more main street that i thought i recognized the name of, but all the names are similar up there: ridgecrest, maplecrest, laurelcrest, etc. and the grid system totally breaks down. i would pass 32nd street then somehow be around 14th. i almost thought i was in the twilight zone.

luckily one of the crest streets headed downhill in what seemed to be a never ending spiral of speed, when i ended up back at the street where i had began. all in all in was a nice ride and i was only gone for about a half hour. it's funny how slowly time passes when you don't know where you're going. i decided to illustrate my adventure below.