Simple arithmetic

If you have two ferries, and take two away, how many ferries are left?

Well, that would be zero ferries of course.

5 of us took off from Wilsonville today and planned to ride a 69 mile route that would cross both the Wheatland and Canby Ferries.



I've led this route 3 times, and twice now the route had to be modified due to ferry closures. Seems that high water is anathema for ferries!

I didn't bother to call the ferry hotline, didn't seem to be a need, there hasn't been a lot of rain in the last week, or so I thought. I won't make that mistake again! We got down to the Wheatland Ferry and saw the sign.


We thought about it and decided that maybe vandals had dropped the sign and the ferry was only a mile or so away so we rode there to inspect the situation for ourselves.

Yup, it was closed alright!


We decided to ride farther south by following Wallace Road into West Salem and crossing the river on the bridge into downtown Salem.

There was just the hint of headwind that we pushed on our ride southward today and this added a few miles of that for us.

We arrived in Salem and made the turn into Keizer where we stopped to eat a quick bite. Our little detour was going to add a few miles to our ride and our on bike supplies weren't enough to make the trip.



We made a few calls during the food stop to determine if the Canby Ferry was also closed. As it ended up it was open.

We pedaled quickly with the slight tailwind but still as we made our way northward we determined that we would likely not be able to complete the ride in daylight if we took the extra miles to the Canby Ferry. We had started late today (just after 9AM) since we only planned on 69 miles. Our ride would stretch to 100 if we took in the Canby Ferry.

We ended up crossing the Boone Bridge on I-5, and made it back to Wankers Corner in Wilsonville before dark. ....just in time for a post ride debriefing!



So we ended up crossing NO ferries, but had a great ride none the less. Perfect weather given the time of year. No rain, well, okay we had a very few sprinkles along Wilsonville Rd very early in our ride, but the sun came out from time to time as the day went on and the roads dried out. Never put raingear on, and temperatures were well within reason.

Good group of folks and a good ride!

............BIKE............LIFECYCLE.....ROLLERS....TOTAL
Today.......87...............0................0...........87
Jan........618...............0................0..........618
Feb........692...............0................0..........692
March......940...............0................5..........940
April......934...............0................0..........934
May........905...............0................0..........905
June......1152...............0................0.........1152
July......1020...............0................0.........1020
Aug.......1000...............0................0.........1000
Sept......1002...............0................0.........1002
Oct........905...............0................0..........905
Nov........523...............0................0..........523
_________________________________________
TOTAL.....9708...............0..............5.........9713