Saturday, June 25, 2011

Road to Salem, Salem and what we did when we got there.

What do you see on the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway? A lot of crops. Here, Matt rides past hops, which we saw a ton of in this area. Interestingly, the website for the bikeway mentions that produce farm stands spring up along the route. We saw a few before we got to Champoeg, but none at all along the route. This was unfortunate, as we were very hungry at this point.

Hungry or not, we made it to Salem. All my years of bike commuting served me well as we transitioned from quiet side roads to main traffic thoroughfares. The next morning I noticed the Salem directions continued on the Salem to Albany cue sheet. I think we would have taken a less congested path if I had realized they were there and followed them.

Here we stop for a picture of the back side of the capitol building.

We checked into our motel (Travelodge Salem) and got directions to the nearest laundromat. We planned to do laundry every night after the first night in Champoeg. With the laundry in the machine, Matt walked across the street to a taco/burrito stand.

He chatted with the woman cooking and brought back what was to me the best burrito in the world. I was hungry!

After consuming that treasure, I walked next door to the Plaid Pantry and bought us an ice cream sandwich and a Butterfinger.

My favorite part about ice cream sandwiches: the sticky cookie residue left on your fingers when you are done eating! While our laundry was churning, we sat in the shade of the store and read our read-aloud books. My choice: Pride and Prejudice. Matt's choice: Order of the Stick Dungeon Crawlin' Fools.

Laundry completed, Matt took a dip in the pool.

But first, a picture commemorating our 34 miles today.

Our fabulous motel.

Matt's slowly committing to the water.

And he's in! And he's up on the wall!

And he's out!

He reports that the water was cold, but felt good.

After reading a bit of our books, I feel asleep and Matt went looking for food. He found instead the World Beat festival where he was enchanted by the belly dancers.

To see the photographic record of our trip Matt posted on Facebook go here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150240061488137.315910.633443136&l=2392c1b7c6
Don't worry, it's public, you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.

3 comments:

Debrarian said...

Okay, wait, you read both those books aloud? That is an excellent picture in my head. Did Matt do voices for all the Order of the Stick characters? Did you do voices for all the Bennetts?

Also, did I already say?, I love your fingers method for photo-documenting miles covered.

Sara K. said...

That really doesn't look like a proper capitol building. Sorry, Salem, it just doesn't look right. I felt the same about New Hampshire's (that post is coming soon...I'm waiting for Shawn to post about his new job!). I love the extra cookie on the fingers as well. It is the bonus of eating an ice cream sandwich!

Patricia said...

We did and still are, in the case of Pride & Prejudice. In P&P we have some set voices: Matt is Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Darcy. I am Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth and Mr. Collins. A lot of the book tends to be two characters in conversation, so for most of the rest of the characters we trade off.

Matt has a firm cast of characters list for OOTS.

In other news, Salem did have a more traditional capitol looking building, but it burned down in the 50s, I believe. This was it's replacement. Growing up, I always thought it looked wrong, but I like it, now.