Xing Paths

After three weeks and 300 rides, Pedalpalooza wrapped up last Sunday with the madness of Multnomah County Bike Fair.

I love kicking off the summer with this annual celebration of biking community and zany fun! Fully mobile with River in tow, we rode for a solid four days parading around town, eating bike-themed donuts, splashing in fountains and making music with bells. Video highlights are posted to Bunny's YouTube, and here are some pics:

Every ride cross-pollinates community paths, and on occasion, a cosmic connection surfaces like this story from the stellar bikeportland blog. Pedalpalooza also overlaps with Father's Day. With Goob arriving from D.C., I began fretting over a meaningful gift that could bridge the 3,000-mile distance between us. Fortunately, Pedalpalooza delivered BIG with a noontime bicycle author brown bag that revealed Momentum, a memoir of a father's bike odyssey from Portland to Washington D.C. with his two sons and their grandpa's ashes. Perfect!

For our Father's Day weekend getaway to the coast, I brought bikes for an epic intergenerational beach cruise with Goob and Lilly.

HawkEye

With a break in the weather, we headed out to the Columbia Gorge on Memorial Day for a memorable walk in the woods.

"Let's count hawks on our way out," Lilly randomly suggests on the drive leaving Portland. 1...2...3...

Yeah sure, why not. A keen eye can always spot a couple hawks circling the Gorge skies. In line with our 2010 wild bird theme, we count 19 hawks in 19 miles!

"What's up with ALL these hawks?!?" Bunny wonders.

"Maybe they're gathering for Starhawk, the good witch who's casting healing Earth spells at Village Building Convergence tomorrow night," I reply in disbelief.

"Let's ALL go!"

Distracted by layers of birdcalls, it's easy to get lost in Oregon's deep green forest. 100 yards from the trailhead, we make a wrong turn and instead of a mellow waterfall walk, we found ourselves hiking up a steep basalt canyon to Nesmith Point (a 4.8-mile, 4,000-foot climb). The realization was made after several miles and Lilly's increasing protests. But, stopping at a viewpoint, we spied a family of hawks riding thermals up the canyon walls directly before us. This was our second random, wonderful wild bird experience this Spring.

The hawk theme and appreciation of random order continued through the evening with Eye of the Hawk brews and South African beats back in town.

And of course, in spiral dance with Starhawk the following night.

The river is deep

the rapids are strong

we're caught in a current

and don't have long.

Pull up our lives

Change is near

Pull together

Love is stronger than fear.

-Starhawk Spiral Dance Chant

Full Circle

We aimed high for another memorable Memorial Day Weekend STAYcation, but the combination of rain, screaming baby, wedding flower delivery, more screaming, more delivery and more rain has been a real spoiler. Especially compared to last year.

Yet last weekend was a sweet repeat of the Pacific Northwest College of Art annual thesis exhibition. Bunny is their perennial flower designer, and we brought the whole family down for a big dose of cultural inspiration created by the last batch of my former students.

It's been a decade since I started teaching ecology to PNCA art majors. Back then, concepts like sustainability, biophilia and community networks were still fresh to most student vocabularies. Fast forward 10 years...this graduating class is ecoliterate and humanity's inextricable connection to nature is the common thread of their 2010 theses. Coincidentally, one student's mixed-media project fondly referenced the remote wilderness where Bunny and I were married a decade ago, just weeks before becoming a professor.

My tour of PNCA duty was finished in Fall 2007 mentoring a stellar class of interested and engaged students - with the exception of one Beth Nix who repelled all things related to ecological sustainability. I was surprised to find that, much like society, she turned a corner and embraced our civilization's greatest challenge of the 21st Century. Full Circle.

Even WILDerrrrRRR!

Happy National Bike to Work Day! Today was just another cold & soggy commute. But the previous two days were filled with torrential downpours, hail, rainbows, sideways rain, blinding sun, blustery gales, more downpours, etc. Unusually WILD weather and bike commuting for meek & mild Portland.

Surfing the Pedalpalooza calendar, I came across an organization that matches my current fetish for bicycling and all-things-WILD: www.cyclewild.org. Their mission is to reconnect people to nature via overnight bicycling adventures. I've been dreaming of riding to Bagby Hot Springs all winter, and the CycleWILD folks not only host rides to this sacred sanctuary but also provide a map and cue sheets for a bike-friendly route.

Touring by bike is still very foreign to me, but I might join the Reno crew in late June for a night or two of their Portland-to-Reno ride. There happens to be a Pedalpalooza Camping 101 workshop a few days before their ride, so maybe I'll get schooled and tag along.

Reviewing the Pedalpalooza bike madness schedule that fills Portland's parks and bikeways from June 10-26, I came across a couple of locally shot videos that are beyond WILD: Performance, and a local bike blogger joined Wayne Coyne for this Flaming Lips shoot on Mt. Tabor and Sauvie Island (two of the sweetest riding destinations in Portland). WARNING: Do NOT open this link if you don't want to see naked Portland hippy hipsters acting WILDly!!!

WILD man! WILD!

Where the WILD Things rrrrrrrRRR!

Lilly, River & I were driving by Laurelhurst Park last Wednesday evening when I spied a big pile of little rocks. At first I did a doubletake, then put her in reverse. rrrrrrrRRR!

The kids new exactly what to do:

Climb up the mound as if it were a mountain...

Tumble down with signature stunts....

Laugh uncontrollably...

Repeat endlessly...

The park itself is a legendary respite from City pace, but this random pile of maintenance gravel was a fresh addition that conjured their WILDest spirits.

Meanwhile I noticed a rogue, post-apocalyptic 'artcar' pull-in nearby. Coupling arc welding with a WILDass-hair-brain idea, the owner converted this 1980s Chevy Luv minitruck into a traveling tortoise shell camper.

The rock pile. The zany car. Suddenly I'm craving WILD things like a twitterpated Bambi in Spring. Birdsongs capture my attention bicycling beneath the vernal urban canopy around town. And with a spate of perfect weather, I've been riding to near exhaustion: extended noontime ascents deep into West Hill greenways on Thursday and Friday...out to Far East Portland for a workshop on Saturday...a Sunday morning joyride into the WILDerness of Forest Park...

The morning ride was a near bust as thunderheads threatened most of the City. I switched directions between North or South several times until a freight train finally blocked the Southern passage, leaving only one dry way out - through Portland's NW industrial area. Normally overrun with freight trucks and pollution, no sane bicyclist would ever venture into this eerie wasteland. But on a quiet Sunday morning, there was nary a soul out there.

Much to my surprise, I found a hidden connection to the elusive Saltzmann Road entry into Forest Park. At one point winding up the gravel grade, I heard a rustling in the woods, did a doubletake, and put her in reverse for a gander. Deer? elk? bear? cougar? coyote? Nothing emerged except a flat front tire. And I then realized that my pump was left at home. rrrrrrrRRR!

Rarely noticeable in the City, mosquitoes came swarming in as I patiently waited for a cell phone and pump-wielding Good Samaritan. A redheaded woodpecker provided entertainment until help arrived. With the flat fixed, I cruised through the forest for miles. Besides the mosquitoes and woodpecker, I didn't spot much WILDlife except an occasional mole feigning death in the middle of the dirt road. But the birds sang emphatically and the lush green jungle satiated my thirst for WILDness.

Sunday was capped off with Lilly & I joining our friends Holden, Dylan & Nicole on a Parkways ride. For five Sundays in 2010, over 10 miles of roadways are closed to motor vehicles allowing pedestrians and bicyclists to freely travel between City parks in Portland. The community comes out in hordes supported by a variety of local, indie retailers and entertainers. It's quite the liberating celebration to kick gas-guzzling, oil-spilling cars to the curb in favor of alternate transportation modes.

And it's always great to ride with family friends. Lilly and Holden were best buds in kindergarten. Through our daughters, Dylan and I realized that we both hail from Reno and share a common thrill for Portland's bike culture. Just before our Spring Break vacation to Nevada, he turned me on to the Reno Bike Project and Design Sponge Reno Travel Guide. Through Sunday Parkways, we realized that my friend Greg from 3rd grade is riding from Portland to Reno this summer with Dylan's high school friend, Dan. This wouldn't be completely improbable except that Greg & I are a decade older than Dan & Dylan, and topping it all off, Dylan's mom works with Greg at a high school in Reno.

I phoned Greg from Parkways to share this uncanny connection. "Small World," he laughed and then noted, "But it really isn't a 'small world'. It's a giant, complex world with these strange coincidences." Yep. It is completely WILD that bicycle community networks mysteriously across geographic boundaries regardless of time and space.

On our return home for dinner with Bunny & River, Lilly & I happened across another big pile of rocks - perfect for WILDchild bike stunts. rrrrrrrRRR!

It's ALL Interconnected

Earth Week started off with the de Ronde van Oeste Portlandia bike ride: a loosely organized 50-mile, 5,000-ft urban climb. The grueling course starts up an old grade through the middle of Forest Park and then follows a series of 'Lion of Flanders' stencils through Portland's West Hills.

Spring SPRUNG in the last couple of weeks, and Portland's historic neighborhoods are electric with blooming colors. I rode with Atom, a fellow bike comrade on the cusp of turning 40 and father of two little children. We rarely hang out, so it was great to catch up on life when our schedules aligned with de Ronde. As a brewer at Dragonfly Chai, he's been mastering a new Mate recipe that I looked forward to sampling.

The following day, Bunny and I had a rare opportunity to escape from the kids for the day, so we bolted for the Gorge and hiked up the short but STEEP Dog Mountain Trail - a little early for the annual mountain meadow wildflower explosion but caught hundreds of blooming Phantom Orchids along the forested trail.

At the summit, we relaxed in the warm sun and soaked up views of the Columbia River and surrounding volcanoes. A perfect Sunday to share reverence for Mother Nature and release any worries into the calm wind.

The 40th Anniversary of Earth Day was one of those funny days in Portland where multiple paths criss-cross in cosmic cadence. I had a hankering for another West Hills climb and planned to meet the family for a picnic at the Audubon Sanctuary in Forest Park.

I love visiting Hazel there, the spotted owl whose eyes pierce my core and transcend the entire universe. I know it sounds exaggerated but her enchanting gaze is a truly wild experience in the City.

On my way out of the office, I ran into Jason, an old acquaintance from Peoples Food Coop and irregular soundman at Holocene. Many years had passed since our last encounter, but I had just seen him working the 4/20 Guidance Counselor show a couple days earlier. We joked around and moments later ran into eachother AGAIN at a Vietnamese sandwich cart. Combined with a series of other community connections, this happenstance got me appreciating how Portland's musicians, artists, foodies and environmentalists are all intertwined together by a common thread of sustainability. A few moments after that, I ran into Darin, another foodie-cycle-friend who's been looking forward to Spring rides together.

Energized by the moment, I climbed up through Washington Park, cruised along Skyline Blvd and flew down Balch Creek Canyon to meet my sweet family in the ancient forest at Audubon. We walked the trails through buds of Spring green and towering Doug Fir giants ending with an interpretive sign describing how the Earth's communities are all interconnected.

The theme of ubiquitous interconnections would continue the next day at Bunny's Studio Nia celebration of Mama Earth. AND, again at today's annual City Repair Earth Day extravaganza where we ran into a bunch of bright-eyed friends and thoroughly enjoyed a fresh brew of Atom's new Mate Chai...It's all INTERCONNECTED!