Day 1 Astoria to Portland

"I am pretty nervous as we start. I wonder what I have gotten myself into. Knowing that it is for a very good cause motivates me a lot. The day is perfect for riding in Astoria. Cloudy and cool. I expected a flat easy stage along the Columbia river bottom but somebody put the coast range mountains in there since the last time I was in Astoria. Lots of climbing. We left at 8am and arrived in Portland a little after 4pm. I was beat from climbing and the rush hour traffic was bad so we called it a day, had a great dinner, and drove to our camp site for the night."

first climb

Each day that Scott "blogs" we will also highlight a story of one of the girls living in Kien Giang so you don't forget why he's doing all of this.


To Thi Thanh is 8 years old. She has two older sisters and one younger stepbrother. Her parents divorced and her mother left. She hasn't even seen her own mother for long time. He father has since remarried, Thanh has been living with her father, sisters, grandmother, stepmother and stepbrother. The back of their old house is very old and the wood is rotten but her family has no money or materials to repair it.

Her father is gone 1-2 weeks at time finding work as a fisherman. her stepmother is gone all day trying to find work. So the grandmother takes care of them when she is feeling well. Most of the time, Thanh goes around village and make friends with neighbors, especially when her older sisters are in school.

When she was only 6 years old a neighbor boy raped her. Because she is so young it is very difficult to ask her again what happened for her but she was able to name the boy. After her family reported it to the police, he ran away, but after a few months the police did arrest him.

Thanh does not go to school yet because she has no birth certificate (therefore cannot register for school) and the family does not make enough money to send her. She wishes that she could read and write. She wants to go to school.

To help provide scholarships for girls like Thanh please visit www.catalystfoundation.org to donate today.