Tag Archives: eugene

Sacramento, CA to Portland, OR

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I just spent 2 weeks living in an intentional community in the forest ~20 miles outside Eugene, OR. This is my first time in Oregon. My-oh-my, is it beautiful! Just a bit cold & wet for my tastes (welcome to the Pacific Northwest!). I give massive cred to the crusties living on the streets here. How do they ever dry their clothes?

Mikey's fully-loaded bicycle is leaned against a well. Itc arrys 4 panniers, 1 backpack, and a huge cardboard box
Bootstrapped moar leik bikestrapped
A ceder-sided building sits in the middle of a dense forest. The side of the building is painted with a picture from the Giving Tree--a tree drops an apple to a boy.
Giving Tree

I spent a wonderful week with a new friend in Sacramento. I was surprised how much I enjoyed Sacramento. The weather was great, the dumpsters were full of gifts (two unopened 4-packs of Pilsner Urquell?!?), and the streets were easy to navigate by bicycle. Coworking offices were pretty ridiculous ($192/day are you mad?!?), but fortunately I was able to work from home.

I was just finishing dinner, planning to see a friend play a folk punk show in Sac when my friend in Eugene asked what time I’d arrive tomorrow. Looks like my calendar was off-by-one day; my train leaves in a few hours. Whoops! I made a call to a friend, packed my stuff, rode-off to amtrak, and quickly boxed my bicycle. When I awoke on the train the next morning, I was crossing a gorgeous lake via causeway with snow-capped mountains in the distance. Everything was green, and–as we climbed in elevation through the cascades–there was snow on the ground.

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San Luis Obispo to San Francisco

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I’ve been living with my friend in the SF Bay Area for the past month. I’m writing this from a cozy, finished room in the corner of a large, leaky warehouse hosting a datacenter and massive library of books in Richmond, CA. The building is owned by a nonprofit library that digitizes books and makes them available online, and my friend has become something of its caretaker while in school.

Mikey is smiling, pointing to a sign that reads "Big Basin Redwood State Park, Rancho Del Oso, A California State Park"
Big Basin Redwoods State Park

Last weekend, on my friend’s Spring Break, I went on my first bicycle tour in over a year. From the Bay Area, we took a train down to San Luis Obispo, and started riding ~300 miles along highway 1, through Big Sur, back to San Francisco. It was a trying journey–both physically & emotionally, but also really really really beautiful. And I needed the Vitamin D. But I could have been spared the Poison Oak and sunburn…

The SF Bay Area is always a great place to be. It was great to spend time with Friends & Family I hadn’t seen since I moved from Berkeley to travel the world over a year ago. I’d like to stay longer, but there’s still so much of the world to see. The weather is getting warmer, and Canada is calling!

Saturday morning I plan to wake up at the crack of dawn, load up my bicycle, and ride ~80 miles to Sacramento before Sunday evening. I’ll spend a week staying with a new friend in Sacramento, then I’ll be going up to Eugene, where I’ll be staying with a friend at the Lost Valley Eco Village.