Four sets of Oregon maps
Several weeks ago, no, maybe a month ago, I requested the Oregon bicycling maps from their website. (http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/BIKEPED/maps.shtml). I waited a few weeks and called them to see if they had received my email request. They assured me that they had and that the maps were on their way. I waited another week and called them again. They recognized my name and once again confirmed that they had sent out the maps. Just for good measure, I provided the address of the house that we are renovating. Today, jammed into the box (We walk to the PO to get our mail. There is no mail delivery in this village.) were three map packets, which I had great difficulty wrestling from the grips of the tiny mailbox. I immediately checked the postmarks, which all had October 18 as the date. One got double stamped by the mail machine and had additional postage added to it. A fourth packet arrived at the other house as well. I was expecting a cyclist on a fully loaded bike to ride up and hand deliver the maps. It took that long. Now we have one set of maps for each room in the house.
One of the maps is the Historic Columbia Gorge Roadway map. It is online as well, but it’s necessary to feel the map and the elevation lines on the map. The climbs feel worse in the brochure than they do online. There’s no sense of permanence online. Those altitude graphs might change daily. Not so with the hard copy. Squiggly, wiggly lines bunched together like a forgotten jump rope or towel heating rack might look interesting. To me, they mean nasty hills. Running right next to the jump rope line is a nice flat, low line hugging the bottom of the illustration. Now considering the Columbia Gorge starts the second day of riding, it seems far more appropriate to lie low on that blue line, which also happens to be I-84. We don’t have much experience riding on the interstate. Don’t know if we have any.
Now, I know why so many journals of x-country adventures mention taking the interstate to save time. The manly men don’t bother mentioning that they are really riding on the interstate to avoid the hills. Others clearly admit that they don’t want to lose time climbing the hills. The Historic Columbia River Highway is also the longer route. Those extra 6 or 7 miles can add up to an additional hour on the road especially considering that 6-7 mph might be a fast speed for climbing.
One of the three maps in the packet is a cycling map of the entire state of Oregon. They kindly put in > to >>> to indicate the direction and steepness of climbs. We want to look for the <<< arrows that mean a downhill for us. We all know that in order to get the <<<, there have to be >>>.
The last map is a coastal cycling route. We only need the part just around Astoria, the geographical starting point. From here we ride out to the Pacific and perform baptism by immersion to our bicycles.
Two of Theresa’s sibs live in Oregon. One will meet us in the Dalles, just north of where they live in Bend. The other doesn’t know about it yet, but will meet us in Astoria. Thought he still lived in Vancouver - WA, not BC.
Now, it’s time to call the Washington bike info people and start the timer to see how long it takes to receive info from them. At the current rate, we won’t have much before May.
Now to try and get some maps from the state of Washington.