What does an oxeye daisy–Leucanthemum vulgare, which (by the way) is edible–have to do with biking or car-free transportation? In this case, everything!
Last weekend, I took part in a super awesome 3-day workshop called the Ginger Root Rendezvous. It’s a few days of camping at the Silverton Grange under the direction of John Kallas, botanist/nutritionist extraordinaire who teaches a shit-ton about wild, edible plants–that is, plants that most people consider weeds, or plants that you just never knew you could actually eat. Even though I went last year too, I still came home this time chock full of new knowledge about plants and their variable edibilities, which always makes me happy: a learning stasia is a happy stasia.
Anyway, this workshop is held in Silverton, OR, about 50 miles away. Last year, I caught a ride with a woman coming down from the Seattle area; this year I opted to pack up all my gear and bike.
It was so much nicer to have biked.
First of all, as people trickled in to the rendezvous on Friday evening grumpy about the heinous Friday traffic, I was secretly pretty smug (I hope I didn’t actually come off as too smug;) about having wholeheartedly enjoyed my four hours of active transit down to Silverton on lovely (and, for me, not-impacted-by-traffic) country roads.
Also, once we were there, I was so happy to have my bike and be in control of my own transit. I know, people who were there with their cars were also in control their own transit, but since I would have carpooled, I would not have been. And my bike had the added benefit that after a day without too much physical activity (other than picking plants, of course;), it was really nice to be able to stretch my legs out as I ran an errand or two. Not to mention be able to explore Silverton at a human pace.
And lastly, for the whole weekend I had another super lovely ride back up to Portland to look forward to.
(fueled by an amazing weekend’s worth of wild food cuisine:)
It all reminded me how lovely it is when the journey to and from my destination is a whole other wonderful part of the adventure. In a strictly time sense, I probably spent about 6 more hours traveling for the weekend than I would have had I carpooled with someone. But those were hours spent doing exactly what I always want to do: ride my bike through the world. It’s so nice when transit is an adventure, not something to be endured.