The other day, I was out on a rambling joyride and ended up on the Springwater Corridor heading out toward Gresham, the way I used to bike to work back in the day. That was the longest commute I’ve ever had (not counting student teaching, which wasn’t a real job yet;), a little over 15 miles one-way, which I did four days a week in the summer and three days a week the rest of the year.
And you know what? I forgot how fricken much I loved that commute.
I mean, I like my current commute up to Vancouver, WA a lot too. There is a bunch of lovely water: I get to bike along the Willamette River, along the Columbia River Slough, and over the Columbia River. I get to see Mt Hood and Mt St Helens and on a clear day even Mt Adams and sometimes even Mt Rainier.
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(I love this view of Mt Hood over the Columbia River in all seasons:) — right now if I leave work a little early, I can catch the sunset light)
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It is a nice ride. Plus it has the added bonus of giving me lots of options, since I have to head both west and north through the Portland city grid to get there, so I have a lot of ways I can zig and zag that are all about equal in terms of length but that offer nice variety when I want to switch it up.
The thing about it though, is Interstate 5 is never really that far away. Not only do I have to use the I-5 bridge to cross into Washington, I parallel it along the Willamette River. It’s always within striking (though not always hearing) distance; when I took that picture of Mt Hood above, this was basically behind me:
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(ahhh, the sweet, sweet traffic of Interstate 5)
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So when I was biking to Gresham the other day, on a totally car-free path through so many different, lovely natural areas, I remembered how much I loved that ride. The Springwater is quiet, quiet, quiet. There are birds and coyotes and deer and rabbits. There are trees and trees and more trees. There are quail sometimes, which I love so very dearly. There is Johnson Creek. Heck, there were even beaver out there for a while (and probably still are), though I only ever really saw their chew, not their actual physical beings. And the big thing: aside from crossing roads, I spent a very small portion of my ride actually biking with cars, since mostly it’s a totally separated bike path.
Riding it again after so long of riding my current commute made me remember how fricken nice it is to be able to totally zone out on a ride to work (no constant vigilance about the cars around me) and also how nice it is when it feels quiet and natural. I mean, yes, I really do love my commute now, but my little Gresham joyride very much made me miss my previous incarnation of ride to work on dedicated bike paths.
It’s pretty great, though, that when I look back at all the jobs I’ve had, they basically all have nice bike commutes, and all have something about them that I miss. That’s a sweet spot to be in:) (Also, let’s be honest, I still get several different bike paths on my commute now depending on which way I ride, they’re just shorter than the Springwater;)
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(also, how amazing is this sunrise from the other morning?? It’s a definite perk of my current commute when the timing is right for me to be about here when the sun comes up:) And let’s also appreciate that since I’m on a bike, I can just pull over and gawk unabashedly, unlike all the suckers driving a million miles an hour on I-5, heh. Take that, suckers;)
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