Onward bound to the Oregon coast

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I cycled pretty solidly until 16:30 and had my destination penned as a town called Invercargil, a 60 mile or so ride from Portland. I passed a van waiting to turn onto the road that reminded me of the one I'd had in New Zealand the year before for 4 months, I waved at the occupants. I rode a bit further and saw the van had driven up ahead of me and pulled over, when I got closer they waved me down. There was a man and his son who asked where I was camping that night, I really didn't know and it was getting close to sunset with ten miles to go so they offered to put me up in their home close by. I got nothing but good vibes so I agreed. They drove slowly down some back roads so I could keep up with them until we got to their farmhouse, I left my bike in the garage and went straight into their home which was lovely. I met the lady of the house who seemed less comfortable with the idea of me being there so I wasn't all that relaxed from this point. I soon learned that they were Christians and had done quite a bit of charity work around Central America and in parts of Africa, they had about 30 hand drawn pictures lining the wall of all the previous guests they'd had stay for days or weeks at a time as well, many of them children. I got given a spare room with its own bathroom that was nice after being prepared to sleep in a tent that night, they asked me just to set my sleeping bag on top of the bed so they wouldn't have to change the bedding highlighting the status of my stay. The parents apologized and told me they had a church meeting that night but would be back after a few hours. I stayed and had tea and some food with their son who was in his mid twenties who had just gotten back from working as a park ranger specializing in medical care for 6 months, during this time in Yosemite national park he had formed a relationship with a girl working in the camping reservations section. We talked about all sorts of things and it was clear he had been raised well, but was less Christian than his parents and did regular things like going to night clubs and bars. The nice thing about being in this home was it's friendly family environment, it felt like a real home. It had an apple orchard that they had just made dozens of jars of fresh apple sauce out of that day which I got about 3 helpings of it was so so good. We drank some more tea and he told me about his older brother who had done a big bicycle tour ten years to Central America and whom lived next to the farmhouse. His brother came over after he called him and he was a reasonably friendly guy in his 40's who seemed far removed from his once epic trip, we still connected well though and once the parents returned we all ate very bland popcorn and talked a bit more. I had a shower, crawled into my sleeping bag and woke up at 7 as I knew they would be early risers, it worked out well as they made me breakfast including some more of that special special Apple sauce, even made me a lunch full of apples and some sandwiches that was handy as I was running low. The husband convinced me to take an alternate country road to the coast that sounded pretty adventurous, his wife protested against it saying the hill going up to it was far too big. My heart was up for it despite it being an isolated road for so long. We farewelled and the older son even came over and wished for me to 'always have wind at my back'. It was a great experience and I felt blessed by the generosity of these people. This was the first time I had been invited to stay in a home of complete strangers by myself and I thought about the me ten years previous who would have been totally uncomfortable in that situation, I was glad that my life's experiences had smoothed out some of my edges. I've met a ton of people up to this point and I suppose I've learned how to fit into random situations. From the moment I left I knew I was in for an adventurous day, I cycled past some wineries on flat roads into a town called Carlton north of the farmhouse that had 0 breweries but a useful gas station that I inflated my tires until they were solid to make the day as easy as possible. I cycled a little further and I came to the start of the hill, it was daunting. I was too unfit to cycle this grade so I pushed my bike continuously for hours with pickups raging past me. It was a Saturday morning and I was warned by one of the locals in Carlton that there was a hillbilly event going on that day with people doing burn outs, drinking alcohol and shooting guns in the hills. I came to a spot half way up the hill and spotted a smashed up version of a car that had passed me no less than ten minutes before, these 3 guys outside the car had just had a serious accident in the modded up 4 door sedan but were uninsured. Even though it must have happened they would have been towed out of somewhere as there was no sign of what they had hit. They got angry when I asked what happened and I told them that I wasn't passing any judgment as people in Australia do that kind of stuff all the time. I have a friend in Perth who went 230km/h a motorbike with me on the back just a few months previous, I meant it. I asked them about the upcoming hill and when it ends and they made it sound like I had accomplished nothing getting to that point, I figured they were just upset about their situation and wanted to me to feel shitty as well but the hill did drag for a while longer, no doubt about it. By the time I'd gotten to the top I'd already eaten most of my gifted lunch expect for a few apples, it was an incredible road as after a flat section and going through a gravel area for a few km's it began winding slightly downhill while running next to a river for about 20km's with hardly any traffic. I almost thought something was wrong as no road could just run downhill for so long but it took me all the way to a small town on the coast that I bought a small tub of gourmet ice cream from and ate the whole thing using my plastic pot scraper as it was too frozen for my plastic cutlery and I was far too hungry and impatient to let it thaw. This is where I saw my first other bicycle tourist coming down from the coastal part of Washington. His name was Kane, he was from the states and I guessed he was a similar age to me. His bike setup was pretty basic and didn't look very waterproof. We didn't jive fantastically well and he struck me as a man with little sense of humor, but not unfriendly, we discussed the best campsite to go to and finally decided to go to Pacifica a town about 15 more miles away. He rode quickly in front of me and didn't seem to care if he got out of my sight, it made me ride quicker than I would have which was a good thing as it was getting dark. After some rigmarole finding the right campsite and getting flipped off by two young guys in a car for no reason we found a state park and set up our tents, ate dinner and grabbed a beer at a local pizza place where we charged our phones and chilled out. Kane didn't seem the type to be openly passionate or excited about anything but told me he was also headed into Mexico. I found his company somewhat depressing, still we grabbed chocolate cake for desert and headed back to camp where it rained all night and was still going in the morning.

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