Back to civilazation (for now)and the Millard Family

So we entered into Eugene after our time through the Smith River wilderness and I can’t say that was too thrilling, all of a sudden we’re swept into traffic, noise, and chaos.  Thankfully a good friend had arranged a place to stay for us, a large family(9 children) right there in the city, the Millard family.  I have to admit that it’s kind of hard for me to put myself in a position to depend on perfect strangers for a place to stay, eat, wash-up, and in any other given circumstance I would have been hesitant to put somebody out (especially an already large family) but that was before, and nowadays these rules no longer apply.  So thanks to Eugene’s lovely bike trails we made it there smoothly and roll up to the Millard’s spacious home right off the trail and a huge city park, this family took us in and had a big, beautiful dinner made for us when we arrived, a room all prepared and took immediately to playing with the children after dinner so that I could get a much needed shower in.  What an amazing sensation this was, you’d think this was the first one I’d ever taken, I lingered way too long, at least 20 minutes.  We were told about how notorious Eugene/Springfield was for bike theft and this family testified to that, they had 5 or so stolen this last couple years, they insisted that we bring them into the house for the night, are you sure I asked, we’re not talking about a couple bikes, this is a full-on mess of trailers, bikes, trail-a-bikes, panniers and cargo, they still insisted so we started bringing the whole set-up in, taking up a significant portion of the dining room area.  The Millards were about some of the sweetest bunch of folks you could meet, they rolled out the red carpet for us, washed our laundry, made beautiful meals, read to the children, on and on. Ryan spent alot of time running around grabbing last minute stuff and I got to spend alot of great time getting to know this neat family,Sam got to know their son, John, and they were off the whole time exploring the bike trails and BMX track.  Cathy (the mom) was just the most gracious hostess, never growing tired of cooking for her own family of 11, but our whole family of 8 and the endless stream of people dropping in all day and night, Cathy and Paul Millard’s children range from 30 on down and most live there with them, Daniel (19) is in nursing school and offered loads of first-aid advice and stocked us up with a fully loaded kit with everything from blood clotting powder for severed limbs to butterfly bandages for small cuts and a lot in between.  Mrs. Millard took me to the grocery store to pick up some dehydrated bulk foods and ended up buying several different kinds of snacks for us and when we got home they got bagged up individually with each person’s name on it for the trip.  I was excited to get back into the wilderness but very sad to leave these amazing people, we fell in love with them, the whole family just radiated joy.  At the last minute our good friend Bob Locus decides to go with us and follow us on bike to Bend, so Bob runs home the evening before we left to get ready and comes back the next morning with home-made bucket panniers made from Fresh Step kitty liter buckets, a full size backpack and another bag, I was feeling a little better about how loaded down we were after seeing this single man with such a load, he straps everything down and we say our farewells to the Millards and we were off with giant storm clouds brewing.  It had been raining the past few days on and off but we had decided to take the plunge anyhow.  About a 2 hour ride with rain pelting us the whole way, we pulled off in some small town at an abandoned mini mart to eat the sandwiches that Mrs. Millard had made for us under the shelter of the awning of this store when the most torrential rains just start pouring down, pretty soon the winds pick up and it is blowing rain at us at about 45 mph, soaking everyone to the bone, I throw the girls back in their trailer with their half eaten sandwiches where they can keep dry and Ryan had pulled out a tarp which everybody was huddled behind with the wind sucking it right against them and flapping in their faces violently while they’re trying to finish their sandwiches, I am standing there beholding the whole thing halfway on the verge of tears and just start laughing, what else can you do, this whole thing looked way too funny, pretty soon everybody is laughing their guts out.  When the storm let up, we all booked it down the road, we were making our way through a nice McKenzie riverside community with gorgeous houses lining the whole way, it’s still raining and when we pulled over again I had to pee and since there were so many houses around I quickly find a semi-hidden spot to go and in mid-stream I look up to see that I am completely surrounded by poison oak, I panic and get out quickly hoping that maybe it didn’t actually make contact with my skin get on the bike and head on.   We make our way up the McKenzie River rd. and the whole time the shoulder seems to kind of disapear and the trucks just seem to get bigger and the rain just seems to keep coming down, it’s getting quite demoralizing, I have a wicked sinus infection that seems to produce a wide range of different colored snot and we stop at about 5:30 p.m. at a small mountain general store to buy some chemical warfare for my head and ask about good camping, the guy there at the store didn’t seem to know a whole lot about where to camp and suggested we go up the road for a few miles and turn off on a road that might have somewhere to pitch a tent, so we head down the road following his directions down a road and quickly realize this is not the place to stay and start back and about halfway we are met by a lady in a SUV who meets us in the middle of the road, I’m behind a little bit so when I roll up it appears that she is just tearing into Ryan, “You’re on the most dangerous road on the planet, your wife and son are sick, it’s pouring down rain and you obviously have no idea where you’re going!, I have a 3 year old grandbaby and if I knew she was in……..” wait, I’m thinking, how does she know all this stuff, yes Obby had threw up the night before, and I’m sick, I have a 3 year old, but who is this lady and how in the world had she figured all this out???  “Now listen” she says, “I have a place down the road, showers, horses for the kids to play with, water, you can either come home with me or down the road there is a piece of property you can camp at, you decide” she declares authoritatively  The whole time Ryan is standing there stone cold like a kid in the principal’s office and I think Bob has his mouth wide open in disbelief and I’m still trying to figure out how she knows all this stuff.  “Thank you” we tell her when we finally figure out that all this is an invitation and not a prelude to an arrest, just her own mother hen way of letting us know that she cares, so we follow her and opt for the property to camp on because it’s closer, we thank her again as she assures us that if we need anything, she’s right down the road a couple miles, herbal tea, water, anything.  Thanking her up and down, sort of like when you get pulled over by the cops and escape a ticket, we part ways and set about making camp behind a grove of trees in this absolutely stunning spot, after the tent is set-up  and a fire is made under the trees, it just starts dumping rain again but the trees around us are so thick we hardly notice.  We  go to bed that night just so thankful for this great place to stay, we’re dry, well-fed, warm, everything seems just too perfect, except my butt kind of itches.