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 Hello from Stumptown, U.S.A.! Your reliable and intrepid travelers, Andrew and Evan P, have had a wonderful time of it here in the Northwest full of great notions and even greater coffee. (Andrew was even so kind yesterday as to take a tiny break during the bike parade to stop and procure two Americanos for us, one of which he craftily concealed in his bicycle's water bottle holder and brought back to be consumed on the premises of our busy day.) The Tour de Fat in Portland was about 25 degrees cooler than it was last year, which made the cavalcade and resultant Waterfront Park event about 16 times more awesome. But, without further ado, we are sure you are anxiously awaiting word about how our performances on stage are going and would therefore like to tell you that after several very respectable executions of our parts (Recycling and Landfill, respectively) in the first three cities, yesterday we had to enter from Stage Left instead of Stage Right and we were certainly worse off because of it. Who knew what was happening? Not us, that much we do know. Everything was so different from that side of the world, not at all like entering from the other, but in the end, both of our parts of the Waste Triumvirate (the lovely Compost is a professional and need not be mentioned here) were played out successfully and a modest heartfelt cheer arose from the crowd at the end of the day when we had our curtain call and we would like to think that they loved us deeply. Such conviction you will never see in roles like ours (without lines or dancing or much of anything but presence and austere projection from behind hot and heavy layers of costume plastic), we can promise you that!
In any case, Matter Journal and Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac continue to make their way into hands across the country and with them the good news of farming, bicycling, and literature. People constantly thank us for coming to their city pulling our gypsy cart of love and want to share with us their stories of bicycling very long distances or what they've done with chickens in their backyard or about how they think that vegetables are the saviour of our bodies and our planet and that they have some growing right now in their backyard if we want to come over and look at their garden and eat with them tonight. It's all so lovely, this excitement that people have that the world can and will improve because they are working on making it so.
But now, gentle WFP devotees, we must be going east toward Idaho, that land of open plains and potatoes. Boise, we await you impatiently.
Yours always,
Andrew and Evan P
On to Boise!
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