Moving inland

Friday, September 11th.
Today I leave the coast to head inland to Eugene. I will meet up with the tour group on Sunday and we will have one day of "orientation" before heading back on the same road I came in on. The weather is hot, 93 degrees, and I am sad to be leaving the ocean behind. I rode 73 miles to a camp ground on an artificial lake. Actually it is a reservoir. It has a concrete boarder similar to a swimming pool, only it is huge! Easily as big as some of the bays on Lake Minnetonka, in fact there are three marina's on the reservoir and on Friday evening I watched a sailing regatta with 22 boats participating.
Let me share with you what I have discovered with the fine state of Oregon. The government workers love rules. The love telling you about their rules. The love up holding the rules. They love the power of the rules.
After riding 73 miles into camp on Friday evening, I inquired about a small spot to pitch my tent. Now mind you, I have no car, no RV and no boat trailer attached to said bike. The rule following women behind the window of the camp ground office kindly instructed me that the camp ground was full and that I would have to bike another 23 miles to the next closest camp ground. As you can all imagine, this instruction did not go over too well with my current, dehydrated state of mind. I informed her again that all I needed was a small parcel, perhaps under a tree and out of the way of the other "campers." She quietly sat down at her desk and pulled out the rule book. She began to recite rules 5-9 which stated that no persons would be allowed to camp in an Oregon camp ground that was found to be full. At this point, I was almost in tears. I wanted to lash out at both the rule book and the women who in her short sightedness could not find an ounce of kindness or the willingness to look the other way. As I pleaded with "the witch" a kind gentleman came up to the window to inform us that one of his friends would not be able to join them at the camp ground that night and that site 33 was open if anyone should be looking for a place to stay. Thank you God! I still ended up placing my tent under a tree, leaving the entire camp site open.
The other rule that Oregon employees like to steadfastly hold on to is a one hour time limit on computer use at their public libraries. In order to send out these blogs, I have to locate a library in the towns I am riding through. I register as an out of town guest, sign into the computer with a guest pass code and quickly try to remember what I have done on the previous days. You are permitted to one hour of computer use per day, and not a minute more. Once I was the only patron in the entire library, other than the hired staff, and yet still they would not permit me to use the computer for more than an hour. Honestly! No one else was there. I asked if I could come back in an hour after I ate lunch, and they still said no. Now, I have never been a rule follower, just ask my siblings, parents or any of the teachers I have had over the past several decades. I hate rules. They confine the imagination, and generally serve little purpose as far as I am concerned. So you can imagine my displeasure in running up against Oregon's governmental mentality.
I think I need to go soak my head in the lake to cool off a bit.
I will spend the next three days relaxing by the artificial lake, reading, blogging and preparing for the second half of the ride; from Eugene, OR to San Francisco.
Keep those comments coming, they really help boost my motivation and keep me connect to home.