On a snowy May day in Austin, Nevada I was looking for a place to eat and get some hot coffee. There wasn’t much to choose from in Austin, so I just headed over to where all the parked cars were. As I took off my winter riding gear, I glanced over to see some Oregon plates on a white Mercedes.
“Hi” I said “ You guys from Oregon?” Darcy Patterson and her mom Bev where doing some traveling down the 50 as well. We got out of the cold and they invited me to join them at there table. We then talked about my journey on the 50 and the reason I was riding for the Vasculitis foundation. Darcy told me of a little run that her and her sorority sisters (the bitches in black) put on every year to raise money for the sporting programs and stuff for the kids in her community. She asked me if I’d like to ride over in August when they had it. It’s kind of hard to say no to Darcey she is such an energetic person, I think I told her I’d try.
So I finished up the 10871 miles of the hwy 50 ride and found my self back in Grants Pass, when I got a e-mail from Darcy reminding me of the Desert Dash. So I found myself packing up Drunk Bob for a little run to the eastern part of our state. Which was cool since having lived here I have never really traveled much over to eastern Oregon.
I had during some point over my flap jack breakfast with Darcy told her about the couch surfing site that I had joined to hop- skip my way across the U.S. to make the hwy 50 run. In her e-mail she told me” Don’t worry if you’ve got no place to stay you can crash on our couch or something’ just grab your friends and ride over and party with us!”
So after a burger in Bend I headed east on Hwy 20 long, flat and it seemed to take for ever to get close to Hines Oregon where the run was held. So I finely rolled into town and met my busy host Darcy and all her gal's.
I call her the reneagade couch surfing host as she is not officaly on the couch surfing site. She had a time explaining to her kids that a "Stranger" was going to stay with them! I think that they gave her a hard time. Mom! if we did something like this you'd kill us! Any way we all got along fine and I think that I have more friends over in eastern Oregon now than here where I live.
Wonderful fam. They were all so kind to me "a total stranger" this kind of experience, meeting these kinds of people restores my faith in what a great country we live in.
Woke up early and got this shot from the front porch.
Every body I met was so nice in this town . I mean I really didn't know anybody except Darcy and her mom (well sort of) However it seemed that everybody was looking out for me. I'm alright roaming around all by myself most of the time. How ever everybody made sure that I wasn't alone or made an effort to see that I wasn't left out of anything. If you can imagine with all that was going on they all took time to make sure I was OK. I tell you what these are some of the nicest people I have ever met. I kinda wanted to take Lisa, Darcy's single sister for a ride but as usual I fiddled away my time being too shy to ask her.
The run was pretty fun too, I even for the first time entered the bike events. It got a little hot but it was fun.
Tina my partner in the events.
Round Barn.
Thanks to you all over in Hines Oregon, hope to see you again. Peace.
