It seems these days we’ve been so busy writing articles, giving presentations and creating videos ABOUT bicycle travel that we’ve hardly had a chance to do a trip ourselves. With the weather starting to warm up, we decided to pack our bikes this past Sunday and do an overnighter to one of our favorite local camp spots – Dodge Park. You can easily get to Dodge Park from the Portland metro area by taking a combination of the Springwater Trail and some country roads and that would come out to about 25 miles. But, we were itching to do some riding, so we tried an alternate route that is more scenic and hilly and comes out to just under 40 miles.

After the freeway noise of the I-205 and I-84 bike paths, we were on quieter country roads. We stopped at the small town of Troutdale and had lunch at a new bottleshop/pub Brewligans. In the corner of the pub, they recreated the perfect nostalgic mancave for men of our generation: a wood finished TV cabinet complete with a Nintendo and a bin full of games. Mental note: have to stop there for some brews and Super Mario Bros. after riding the Gorge some time 🙂

The riding was spectacular. There was little traffic and the route was beautiful with some nice shady climbs and twisty descents down to the Sandy River. It felt great to be on loaded bikes again carrying everything we would need for the next day. When we checked in at Dodge Park it was pretty empty with the exception of some people in the day use area. By the time they closed the entry gate, we were literally the only ones in the park except for the camp hosts. It made for some great sleeping with the sounds of both the Sandy and Bull river just outside our tent.

Speaking of tents, we recently picked up a Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo. They are having a sale right now until June 6th on the Outfitter model of the Lunar Duo. At $143 for the tent, poles and seamseal it was too hard to pass up. It is an interesting design that splits the difference between a tent and tarp. It is not freestanding and is single walled like a tarp, but has a floor and mesh walls like a tent. It was our first time setting up and using the tent so we can’t make any long term statements about it, but so far it is pretty awesome. It packs down smaller and weighs less than our Big Agnes Copperspur UL2 tent at a third of the price! Perhaps the most striking difference was the interior room which was palatial compared to tents we’ve used in the past.

Our old paella pan which we carried with us across the country came out for a bit of a campfire encore. As did our camp coffee gear and a cute pepper grinder that was gifted to us by a reader (thanks Jolene!).

After getting camp setup, I fished for a few hours without much luck (there was one nibble) and settled for the consolation prize of standing by a beautiful river and watching the sunset. There could be worse places to not catch fish.

We slept well. Tired from a day of loaded touring. Thinking back, it is almost hard to imagine the time when that was just what we did everyday, rain or shine, whether we felt like it or not. We talked a little about whether we missed the endless road much. There are some things that are truly magical about it. But interestingly, we both are really enjoying what we are doing now also, using our experiences to inspire and help make changes to facilitate bike travel in Oregon. We are glad that we did the trip when we did and don’t regret it for a second. For now, we’re happy to follow this strange new road of sorts around bicycle travel and tourism.

The next morning, we made a breakfast fire. Ate some hard-boiled eggs that Laura prepared the day before and brewed several cups of coffee. I did a little more fishing and when it looked like the fish were going to win that day, I packed it in. We pedaled up out of the river valley and headed back towards Portland, arriving at our apartment a little more than 24 hours after we left. It felt much longer though and it reminded us about the magic of bike travel. You are so engaged and in the moment that time stretches out before you like a road that never ends.