There are bikes aplenty in Baker City, Oregon, even if you can't ride them all.
So my dad emails me to tell me Zac Goldsmith was talking to Andrew Marr on BBC's Sunday AM and he said that Oregon is more eco-friendly than California. Now I've always been wary about trusting very good looking men but it would appear the angel of British environmentalism is onto something. Two days and two major blood-boiling hills into the state and I arrive in the smallish town of Baker City to find bikes aplenty, a farmers cooperative, an organic food store and local produce advertised widely on restaurant menus. Not a bad turnout for a city of 5,000 people. The road ahead seems to be filled with micro-breweries, state parks, and national campsites, ending in the town of Eugene whose Wha Guru Chew organic bars I've been chomping since Lolo. In fact the only bummer about Oregon is that no one seems surprised anymore when I say I'm cycling to Florence which means I have to qualify every statement with "but I came from D.C, cheerio, tally-ho, what, what" in order to get any type of response. Being British is always a failsafe conversation starter.
I would have to qualify Mr Goldsmith though and say that Oregon has quite a California feel to it. Organic coffee shops, one-off book stores and funky thrift shops are de rigeur in Baker City and locals have told me I can expect even more on my detour through Bend. It seems Oregon is becoming the place to be for dissatisfied west coasters. It still has the feel of wide open America to it but seems slightly more tamed than Montana, sharing more of Idaho's primitive beauty.
That's not to say the state is not currently experiencing its fair share of raging wildfires which many say is a symptom of global warming. Trucks full of firefighters have gone screaming past in both directions and as the sun sets it turns the seeping smoke on the horizon into billows of red cloud. These fires are destroying acres and acres of land and it's sort of strange that we can invent missiles which can be directed into someone's front room on the other side of the world but we can't seem to tackle nature when she's bent on destruction.
Tim has become bored of my appalling map reading skills and has sped off at a breakneck pace towards San Francisco, leaving me with two weeks to get to the coast in a chilled out fashion. Perfectly suited to Oregon I feel.
I've got a question. Why don't governments make it illegal to not recycle? I can't work it out. It seems one of the major barriers to mass recycling is that people think their contribution would make no difference so surely the simple answer is to make it the law?
