Day 6 - Fire and Rain

Rest Day :)

After writing my blog last night I got chatting to andy who ran me to the car wash for change and is doing the john deere training. We started to have a look at potential routes across Oregon. It turns out his brother is a lot more hardcore than me; He is hiking from mexico to canada! And its taking him 6 months.. he has some satelite tracking on him, and only comes out of the mountains once a week to stock up on food.

I went to bed in more pooring rain. I was awoken in the morning by sirens (I was thinking here are the gangs!!) The sirens continued for about 2 hours, at which point I got out of my tent to see what was going on. I looked out to see a massive plume of smoke coming from the centre of the city. It turned out that an entire block of the city had burned down - the locals suspect it was arson.

I headed downtown to see what was going but most of the city was closed off. They had to call two other fire departments to help put the blaze out. They lost a dress shop, a bar and some other stuff. Whilst downtown I got myself a massive pizza, a coffee and an oregon map to plot out the next few days. I'm still finishing the pizza as we speak.

Once I got back to the camp ground I set about sorting out my handlebar bag which had been annoying me for the last 5 days. I tried straps, but it kept moving out of position. Using cable ties, a small spanner and sellotape (scotchtape) I think I have implemented a longer term fix - I guess it will last a week before falling apart!

Anyway tonight is going to be a very early one as I want to make a really good start and make it to my second state tomorrow! Fingers crossed the rain holds off, there is supposed to be a few showers through the night then pretty in the morning.

Thanks for all the recent donations!