Day 137: Cascade Locks/ Portland Zero
8.30.18. 0 miles.
I slept in this morning, laying in bed until 8. The hotel had breakfast vouchers for the diner next door, Bridgeside, so I meandered over there to eat. After breakfast, I went back to my room and started organizing and counting my food from care packages and my partial resupply box. After that, I went over to the local grocery store to buy my resupply for all of Washington. I was pretty disappointed, however, about the lack of options. I knew I couldn’t resupply fully out of this store. There were things I really wanted that they didn’t have. Frustrated, I left the store with a partial resupply, went to the Post Office to grab boxes & check if my package from Katy showed up, and with some more digging, they found the package.
I went back to the hotel and looked at my still long list of groceries I needed, and had an idea. Why not go to Portland to finish grocery shopping, and also eat some of my favorite foods? I looked at the shuttle online and found out there was one leaving really soon, so I grabbed my things and my empty backpack and ran to the bus stop. It only took about 1 hour to get there by the shuttle, and soon I was in Portland! While on the shuttle, I discovered amazing news: the Northern Terminus had reopened! My spirits were lifted so much. I had been dreading trying to make a decision about what to do about the closure. Now I know I still get to walk to Canada on the PCT! The shuttle dropped me off on the east side, so I needed to hop on the light rail system to get downtown. I immediately went to Blue Star Donuts to grab a few donuts, Whole Foods to get some goodies, and then went to Safeway to finish my shopping. I stopped by REI to get some Nuun tabs and replace a couple tent stakes, then took an Uber to Salt & Straw to get ice cream! Yum. I realized however, when I was trying to plan my trip back that there were no more shuttles to Cascade Locks for the day. Crap. I had read the schedule all wrong. Immediately, I texted Patches bc I knew her and her dad had a rental car and were going into Portland to shop. Thankfully, she responded and said I could of course get a ride with them back to Cascade Locks in the evening. Thank goodness too, since I would have been screwed if they couldn’t. Feeling better about my situation, I went and got some Thai food, then walked back downtown, got a PSL from Starbucks, then stopped by Grassa, a great Italian place to grab a pasta to eat later for dinner.
Still needing to kill time before meeting up with Patches, I walked over to Patagonia and browsed, while an aspiring PCT thru-hiker noticed my hiker vibes and asked if I was hiking the trail, and we talked for a while about the trail. I then ventured over to the Montbell store, wanting to try on a few items, and ended up buying some lighter weight liner gloves, waterproof mitts, and a balaclava to replace my beanie that never could stay on my head well. After the shopping, I took an Uber across the river to where I was meeting up with Patches and Macro, at a pub where Macro was meeting a friend from when he lived in Portland. His friend was sooo nice and welcoming of us. After chatting for a while and everyone else eating their dinner, we finally left, and I drove back to Cascade Locks with Patches and her dad, thanking them eternally for saving my butt out here. When I got back to my room, I totally crashed, but not before eating my pasta and a couple of the donuts I bought.