Washougal, WA June 16

Washougal, WA. -- Wednesday, June 16
As of today, we are two days behind our forecasted schedule. Unfortunately there are no days built into my portion of the ride which would allow an easy make-up.
Today we only managed to do 33 miles due to an mid afternoon start (2:00 PM). Our delayed start was a result of many things; however the two most notable we're to tend to Andrea's significant overnight swelling around her left eye (an after affect of her Monday accident) and to address bicycle equipment issues, most notably an uncontrollable steering shimmy at speeds greater than 15 mph. Despite daily attempts to rebalance my load, I could not resolve the issue. Given the safety concern, I decided the best course of action was to take weight off the bike and put it in a bike trailer. I was able to purchase a Burley Nomad in Portland and off load about half of my bike's static cargo. The end result is that I've not had a stability problem for the last 25 miles. What a relief! This was a worrisome issue.
Although today's ride was not as easy as yesterday's, it was far more pleasurable. Ditching the heavy traffic of US Hwy 30 made a big difference. With the exception of a 1.5 miles on I-205 to cross the Columbia River to get into WA, we were generally on low traffic roadways or bike paths. Even I-205 wasn't bad, given its dedicated and separate bike path. It was deafening, however; as the path was the separation (median) between opposing traffic on a six lane highway.
Tomorrow we hope to get an early start and ride 70 miles. Given all that has happened that would be a good day.