1. Portland, Oregon

Day 1:  Monday, June 22, 1981

Portland, Oregon

...and the first day of our grand and glorious trip across America.  If our first day's luck holds, we should be in Clackamas for Christmas.  My bike box disappeared somewhere between Seattle and Portland.  It held not only my bike, but tent, stove, mess kit, and miscellaneous odds and ends.  So far, Northwest Orient has treated us to supper, breakfast, and a motel room, and they're looking all over the country for that missing bicycle.

All that work on the bike seems rather pointless now.  I wouldn't mind waiting here until the bicycle showed up, but Jack is anxious to get on the road.  If the airline can't locate it, I'm not sure what to do - it would take $800 to replace all that's missing, and the airline will pay only $400 - and in their own sweet time.

We took a bus downtown this afternoon, and window-shopped for a replacement bike.  When we returned to the airport - good news!  My bike had been located in Chicago.  It will be in at 8:45 tonight.  We'll put it together, then spend one more night in the motel and head out in the morning.

We had planned to start from Astoria, in the northwest corner of Oregon, but now we'll just head south from Portland, visit a cousin of Jack's who lives near Dallas, and perhaps take an alternate route via Reedsport to look at the Pacific Ocean.