Weekly Wanderings

 Saturday, June 4, 2022

 Now that the Farmer is retired we are trying to get out each week and explore a new area or just an old favorite. We are enjoying our "Weekly Wanderings"!

In May we had fun exploring the newly remodeled Salem Public Library and eating at a very popular, but small diner, White's Restaurant, also in Salem. I enjoyed their specialty the Biscuits and Gravy! It's been years since I've ate biscuits and gravy. These did not disappoint. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures that day.

We hiked at the Basket Slough. A place within 30 minutes of our home but Jerry had never been. 

We took two different bike rides. One at Champoeg State Park. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed learning a little more about this area. It is on the Willamette River and there is so much history here!

But the most memorable Weekly Wandering in May was our bike ride on the Banks-Vernonia State Trail. We had been on this trail several times but just walking different sections of it, never biking. This day we were going to bike from Banks to Vernonia and back again. It's 20 miles. One way. We haven't biked a whole lot lately. At 10 miles I was thinking it was kind of hard. And it was as the grade was the steepest there and then I thought okay we should be fine...and we were. It took about 3 hours to get to Vernonia which was fine. We stopped. I took photos...

I was definitely ready for a break when we stopped at a park in Vernonia and ate our lunches that we had packed. I was a little concerned about how I would fare going back. Jerry assured me it was all downhill. Five minutes into our lunch break we heard a very loud bang! Scared me to pieces. There were kids playing on the nearby swings and it scared them also! Well, we soon discovered the inner tube in one of my tires had blew up!!! Yipe. Flatter than a pancake. What to do...we had no spare inner tubes on us. No money.  

We found no places on Google that did tires in Vernonia and even if they did we didn't have any money, would they trust us to pay them, etc. We soon decided that I would stay at the public library (I love public libraries for many reasons! Just added a new one to my list! LOL!) and Jerry would bike back down to Banks by himself. Oh, and he hadn't brought his phone! I had mine. Yea, it was a whole comedy of things! So, that is what we did. As Jerry said goodbye before he left I looked up and this is what I saw:

I thought, yep, okay, I can trust Jesus with this one. I had too. So, I went into the wonderful little library, found the Anne of Green Gables book that I was reading at the time and sat down for a couple hours and read. Jerry biked back down to Banks in under two hours! Wow! He was flying. He said it was way easier going back. Thankfully he had no problems and my Farmer came and rescued me!

We learned a few things on this trip! It was still a great day and we definitely made some memories! I am quite disappointed I was unable to complete the trip. Now we have to go back and do it again! Except I'm debating...since I rode the one way and by no fault of my own couldn't complete the trip wouldn't it be okay if I just started at Vernonia and biked down to Banks??? Or do I do the whole trip??? I do know I am biking consistently now until I do get back to complete this!!! I want to be in better biking shape!

Happy trails!

Tracy