I left my absentee ballot in Iceland, so I biked down to the polling station today. I’ll tell you, I felt quite the Oregonian with the rain pelting me in the face as I whipped down 15th Avenue. The line of people with missing or damaged ballots stretched down the block, but moved pretty quickly. One guy had turned 18 three weeks before and hadn’t gotten his ballot in the mail. He was afraid that they wouldn’t let him vote. I remember my first time voting. It’s pretty cool and feels powerful and very adult.
This is the first time I’ve voted at a polling station in years. Oregon has mail-in ballots and before that, I was on tour or for other reasons voting absentee. In fact, I don’t think I’ve done the polling station thing since I was in college. It was sort of, I don’t know, festive. And there were no exit polls, which was nice.
The other interesting, but not voting related thing, is that the bike ride home, which includes a hill that I’ve always found difficult, was easy. I keep thinking I’m out of shape, but I guess I was biking hills and with a mountain bike. Switching back to a road bike means I’m dealing with a lot less resistance from the tires. I was still winded by the top, but I went up it easier than when I was biking full-time here.
