There was a good house I stayed in, and good friends nearby, but two weeks in one place without working there was enough. I stayed so long as I felt welcome, and left still welcome, which I suppose marks a good exit. But really I had stayed for an invitation.
One of the cafe girls had invited me to the going away party of a friend of hers. As it was to be a going away-talent show, and I had been telling stories for tips at the Saturday market, she thought I'd be a good addition to the list, but the party would not be until the following Thursday. I was in no hurry, so I tacked another week onto my first.
That thursday came around, however, and her friend had changed his mind and moved the party to the following week. Would I stick around till the next Thursday? That would make three weeks, and I was getting ansy to go. Well, then where would I be staying on my way to Portland? Would I pass thru Silverton? She was moving there that weekend. Would I stay with her?
Of course I would. So I took down her number and said my goodbyes.
I just followed the roads of the Willamette Valley north, they obligingly running due true in that direction. I did not pause much, doing around 30 miles a day with the exception of one 17 mile day because I took my time to enjoy a morning in Corvallis.
On a long stretch of straight nothing I got passed by this guy:
http://thirtysixer.com/about-me/
A unicycle is rare on any occasion, but odder still when the only other things moving were the dust devils over the wheat fields. There were hardly even any cars that day. We figured each other for mutual travelers (was it the backpacks?) and stood on the roadside talking for a bit.
I like the idea of this. It's not just what he is doing - riding from Virginia to Oregon is an impressive feat of endurance, whether on bicycle, or horse, or homemade rocketship - but the chosen method - a unicycle?! - is a necessary touch of whimsy. It surprises people out of whatever they had been preoccupied with. I like the idea of living each day expecting odd moments of beauty and poise will happen.
Looking at my maps in Corvallis, it looked like the easiest way to Silverton was to follow the solid red line of Buena Vista road across the river at the town of the same name. Arriving at the riverbank proved otherwise. I would have to take a ferry across. A ferry that did not operate on Mondays, and furthermore had closed the day previous for the season. I could wait for an obliging boater to help me across or walk the seven miles to Independence. I couldn't make seven more miles before dark, so I walked onto the idle ferry boat and looked for my means to cross.
On the bank opposite, a man in a pickup was loading a motorboat onto a trailer. Although I've had a prohibition against motorized vehicles, I realized I may have to compromise my principles if I want to have more time in Silverton. I hollered, I waved, no response.
The Wilammette at Buena Vista is about 90 meters wide and split in two around a sandbar. The fork nearest me is shallow and swift, but not too broad. I strip down, get a good dive off the ferry and clear it with a few hard strokes.
Now crossing the other fork, a jetski shoots down from upstream. The driver does not appear to see me - white guy with a shaved head in a dark river? I look like a buouy - and heads straight for me. I wave wildly, and he swerves to avoid me and loops back upstream. The moment sets me off course, and I get swept downstream out of sight and earshot of the pickup. I swim hard against the current near shore, where it's not as strong, and come out huffing, just as he starts to pull away.
It wasn't easy convincing him he should stop to listen to the out-of-breath babbling of a guy who just popped up from the water. Harder still to convince him to help mr across. I succeeded in the first, not in the second. Flat tire, he says, pointing. He's going to get it fixed. I walk back to the river.
I don't have my glasses on, so I can't see across. There's a woman with her daughter and grandkids. Briefly, I explain how my pack is on the other side and I'm hoping to get everything over to this side. She says there are some guys in a blue rowboat on the other side. I holler. I wave. No response. I'll have to swim the river again.
No jetskis now, but this time I don't have a ferry to push off of, and I'm tired. I reach the other fork, and the current takes me, flipping me over, rolling me against the stones, taking me downstream. These are not rapids, but plenty fast that there's no way I can fight them. Hastily, I remember my high school physics: perpendicular variables operate independent of each other. I swim straight for shore, get snagged on a half-submerged tree, crawl up it, and go off the other side. I get to a rocky patch and find the boaters I'm looking for - two teenagers with an inflatable raft. There's no way they can help me across. After that, even if they had a rowboat, it wouldn't have been any better.
"That was sick when that jetski almost took off your head!" one of them gushes.
I get back on the ferry, dry off, put my clothes back on. There's a homeless guy who has been watching me this whole time.
" I could do that too, when I was 30," he says.
"I didn't do it because I wanted to," I explain.
And then, delicate as a pair of drifting geese, two motorboats come down river. I wave. I holler. I see them talking to the grandmother on the other shore. They turn their boats and make for the landing on their side.
"They see you," says the homeless guy, "and they're not coming across." He says it with resentment. I don't even care at this point. I put on my pack and start walking for Independence.
I get there the next morning, eat breakfast quick, and head for Salem before the heat picks up. I take a midday break at the Coffee House around 2, and get kicked out at 4 for falling asleep on their couch. No matter, Silverton is now 12 miles away and it's only 4 on a Tuesday.
A few times I think I should camp out and just get to Silverton in the morning, but I rationalize that even if I get there late, I get a shower and a friend's company, neither of which I'd have camping in a wheatfield. It's dark when I get there, and only one place open on the main drag. I ask for their telephone and make to call, but I've lost the number. I look all thru my iPod where I wrote it down when she dictated it to me, but it is not there. I send her a message on the wifi, and wait till 10. Still no answer, I find an old van by the river, and sleep next to it, hidden from view from the houses above.
Next morning, messaging her and anyone I knew connected to her, I get a response at 11. She went to Eugene early. She will not be back till Friday, possibly monday. No, probably Monday. Will I be around Silverton till then?
I go to the Towne House diner on Main Street and tear out a blank page from the book I am reading - "The Social Contract" by Rousseau. I can imagine all the things I want to say, how what was going to be a funny story for when I got to Silverton has instead become the unfortunate story of why I am in Silverton. I debate guilting her - I walked 80 miles! I swam a river! Twice! - but think better on it. Guilt wouldn't do much, and there is the very good chance she will never get this. So instead I write out all I really need to say and give it to the waitress with the request that she hold it for the addressee. She's a good woman, Patrice, my one friend in Silverton. She holds the note and gives me her own address so I can mail her a postcard when I get to Canada (she received the entire story, graciously, without offering criticism or sympathy over the hours I spent in her diner). I get my pack back on and head for Portland, getting there mid-afternoon of the following day.
This was the note, three words and my name:
"I was here."
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