Day 1: Into Canyonville, Or

Into Canyonville

They say there are 2 kinds of airline luggage--carry on and lost. Our first flight out of National airport all but sets us up for that. Since I didn't know when I bought the airline tickets if we would need to check out side wolfmans luggage, southwest made a lot of sense. Luckily, they could ship at our risk with the bikes.

Nonetheless, despite being empty in the airport, Southwest thinks I want to become a luggage tagging expert. So, the pleasure of printing the tag is all ours. Except there are a few buckets with bright tags. One said "late arrival". Ok not us. Another said "transfer". My assumption is that this is a change to a different airline carrier mid route, otherwise, since southwest is non stop to nowhere, wouldn't every bag have one?

Nope, the directionless kisosk and the unlabeled bucket of tags I should know as we go to deposit the bags. Really, I get that this might be an easy task that you don't want to pay people that great DC min wage of $15 per hour, but the odds that I get this correct are dwindling before my eyes.

Blaster all but deals the date when the he gives up his bag, and the guy asks Portland, Maine and in his sleep induced stopper agreed with the man for a fraction of a second.

Imagine my surprise when after a lovely flight with our own row for the first leg, and exit row on the second leg, the bags greet us in Portland. The gods must be smiling on me, as these self picked seats are the best assignments I have had on a aircraft in years!

Today is probably the most expensive day of the trip.First, we realized the shipping costs, the plane tickets and now for the trifecta, a $3.99 per mile taxi...for 30 miles. But we arrive with nary a glitch, even with my self-proclaimed proficiency in baggage tagging. I wonder if I can get a boy scout badge for that?

We arrive in Tualatin to a gigantic warehouse.



Apparently, they have 300,000 sq feet of space for household goods and another ungodly amount on racked space.

Does this rack make my panniers look small?

A few signatures later, and we pack out. We pass the 45th parrellel sign. Yes, the point that is halfway between the north pole (hi Santa!) and the Equator. Or so I think the sign read as I ride by at speed.

I changed the sprockets on the mighty WR, to give it a bit more low end grunt, as well as, prevent the drive sprocket from grinding the chain into the swingarm. Overall, I added +7 teeth from stock on the rear, up one tooth on the front. Unfortunatly, that means that Blaster's attempt to rocketship to the hotel on normal GSA time was twarted. 65mph for a 250cc is admirable.

So we end the day in Canyonville, or sandwiches between a casino and the casino rv park. However, this means the seafood buffet line is out the door. But at least the casino has a shuttle to take you anywhere you want to go. Remember, casinos aren't built on winners.