About 3-1/2 years ago, I bought a house and relocated myself from Southern California to Portland, Oregon. It all started with an intuition, brought on by a movie – and it began a change in my life that today, on the 3rd day of the Dog Cancer Ride Across America – found me riding my bicycle through my hometown of Portland, Oregon.
So much has changed in my life since I sat in that movie theater in Los Angeles, watching “What the Bleep Do We Know” that it was only fitting that today was a day filled with change upon change upon change.
First off, for the third straight day, the weather forecast said rain. Only today it said LOTS of rain, and thunder too. And I was scheduled to take on a difficult ride on the highway that runs along the Columbia River. Add that to the twists and turns we’ve been facing… – last night my assistant/webmaster Ian’s computer – that we were counting on using to update the website decided to stop working – and this morning, we were greeted by my 11 month old Kelpie/Border Collie girl mix, who just went into heat for the very first time – and I decided it might be a good day to take it easy, and see what we could do to get everything back on track again.
So instead of my 60 mile ride in the rain, I cut it back to 24 miles and decided to just wind my way to the opposite end of Portland.
But first, we decided to pack our camera in the car and interview another one of my dog cancer clients – Trudie and her amazing Basset Hound Humphrey for our Ride Across America Video Journal… – the interview video should be up online soon. We (Ian and me) had SUCH a great time visiting with Trudie, her husband Al and their 3 droopy dogs – I’ve decided that Basset Hounds are “all the dog packed into half the body” – and filming them with our remaining working video camera (oh yeah, our high end “professional” video camera decided to break on us too, just as the ride began – like I said, …a few twists and turns along the way).
Anyway, back to Humphrey, the dog with all ears, half legs, and such amazing spirit and love for life… we had such a nice time meeting him and his older brother and sister – sharing stories with Trudie and discussing the power of the mind and positive thinking which had done so much to help Humphrey heal. Very much along the lines of what they discuss in “What the Bleep”
[You can Meet Humphrey too in the video interview we'll be posting on the DogCancerRide.com website, or you can visit Humphrey on the Map of Heroes at location A47 (he's a "Route Sponsor)]
And as we rushed back to the starting point for the day – hoping to beat the rain, another amazing thing happened – the clouds all disappeared and a beautiful 70 degree sun came beating down upon me. It was wonderful – the first sun to appear since the start of the ride (ok, second, on day one the sun DID come out for about 30 seconds) and the perfect companion to my tour of Portland.
As I rode through the city, and the beautiful locations that had drawn me to this city in the first place, I had the luxury of a beautiful day, a gentle ride, and all the time I needed to really enjoy my last day in the city I call home for a long long time.
It was sad to ride away from my home town, knowing I wouldn’t be back for over 3 months… but fitting and perfect that the morning worries that caused me to shift all of my plans for the day, ended up creating the perfect day for the perfect ride along the route of my Dog Cancer Ride Across America.
Good night, and I’ll see you down the road…
- Ted Schneck
(from my house, actually, in Portland, Oregon)
