Day 14

June 5, 2011

Today was a nice day. Most of the ride was a few miles inland, so I didn't have an overload of spectacular beach views like I had a view days ago, but the scenery was still pretty nice. I started out the day with a pretty tough climbing section on some side roads, which had very little traffic.

I was going to go to a church, but I didn't get close to any towns until around noon, so I was too late. I got to a town called Bandon, which was a beautiful town on the beach with lots of stylish beach homes and good views. On my way to a grocery store, I got a flat tire from something that stabbed my tire without getting stuck in there. Quickly, I replaced the tube and got my food. After buying a delicious lunch of fruit, cheese, and cracker packs, I went to a softball dugout to eat as a shelter from the cool wind. Along the coast, it seems like there is a constant 10mph wind going south and it wasn't that warm of a day, so the dugout made a nice shelter. After eating lunch, I took some pictures just south of town and headed out.

There were some nice hills along the way trees and patches of grass.

I took my fair share of rest stops along the way and even let my bike lay down for a bit.  

Whenever I see her lying down like this, I imagine somebody with a huge backpack laying down on top of the backpack with his feet sticking up in the air because the pack is so huge. Poor bike.

I was starting to approach Humbug Mountain State Park, where I would stay for the night and took a picture. You can see Humbug Mountain in the distance.

I made it to the campground just as another biker was getting ready to leave. He was contemplating going another 15 miles for the day but saw me and said, “Oh heck, I'll stay.” Alrighty. His name was Dustin and there was a girl, at the site, doing a northward solo tour named Jackie. I talked with both of them for a while, set up camp and made dinner, which was a can of chili and fritos.

Later on that evening, Dustin and I went down to check out the beach, which was very pretty even with all the clouds. We saved some starfish's lives, took pictures of each other, and headed back to the campsite.

On the walk back, we saw Jackie sitting down with an older couple around their campfire next to their trailer, so we decided to stop by and meet them too. They were from a town about 100 miles up the coast and their names were Rod and Jackie. They were really nice and invited us to sit down with them and to have some wine and beer. My wine was in a Red Robin glass that they insisted was not stolen from the Red Robin... Sure. We had a good conversation around the campfire about politics, touring, careers, etc and the sky just got darker and darker. They kept telling us how much they enjoyed hearing about young people's aspirations and views and how brave we all were for doing our tours. Dustin and I told them that it was more stupidity than bravery. It was really fun to meet them and just hang out for a while. We didn't leave their campsite until 10:30 and the walk back to our tents was very dark.

It was a really great evening and it was good to meet everyone at the campground.