Day 13

June 4, 2011

This morning I said goodbye to all the folks at the campsite and headed out towards Sunset Bay State Park, a little ways south of North Bend. Looking at this ride on a map, you would notice that it parallels Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, so I was expecting to get lots of pretty views of sand dunes, but the trees were in the way the entire time, so I didn't really get any views of sand dunes. Consequently, the scenery today was quite dull compared to yesterday.

It was really hot today for much of the ride and my bike computer claims that it reached 93 today. I'm not sure if I believe it, but it definitely at least got to the 80s.

The whole day was a bit boring, but it was only 56 miles, so the ride went by pretty quick. Passing throught the city of North Bend was mildly exciting though. There was a cool looking bridge I crossed to get there and since a lot of the cool looking bridges are narrow, they are always a bit scary to cross.

The city was not at all biker-friendly, which is surprising since it's on the Oregon Coast Bike Route. There were no bike lanes or even shoulders for most of the city. Also, none of the major roads had street signs, so I was never entirely sure I was on the right road. I guess Oregon assumes that you know where you are if you are on a big road. That would be a bad assumption for a biker riding through a city he's never been to before. I did make it out of the city though and rode for another 10 miles to my campground at Sunset Bay State Park. I was kindly greeted by the park ranger who told me that camping was free for the day so I could choose any spot that I wanted! Apparently it was “Oregon parks day,” so there were lots of people at the campground. I chose my spot, set up camp, then made dinner.

If you're curious what a typical dinner is for me, I often have deluxe macaroni and cheese with tuna. It comes out to be about 1200 calories and it's delicious and easy to make. The “Deluxe” macaroni and cheese means that it doesn't require milk and butter, which is incredibly convenient for camping. It also means that it's extra delicious. Every day I use my Jetboil stove to make my dinner and breakfast. The pot has a tiny little sleeve on the side and the best use I've come up for it is this:

That evening I went to the beach to check it out. There was exactly one good view in the park. It was a pretty good one.

Day 12

June 3, 2011

Today was the best day I've had so far in almost every possible way it could have been the best. I texted ChaCha (242-242) and asked it for the weather that morning. “50F-61F, Rain.” Great. Having no choice but to ride, I left around 8:30 and headed south. I got out of the trees and saw 2 surprising sights.

The first sight I saw was a dog riding a skateboard. The man who worked at the convenience store was outside with his 2 boxers. He would set his skateboard down and one of the dogs just put his 2 front paws on the skateboard, gave it a push and coasted for a good 20 feet. Then the owner would frantically run to try to make sure the dog didn't run into the bushes and caught the skateboard just in time. It was hilarious and I regret not taking a picture because you guys probably don't believe me.

The second sight I saw was that the weather was great. Blue skies with no clouds in sight. How could this be? The forcast I read was the complete opposite. Surely it would rain later on in the day, but for now I took off my long sleeve shirt, put on a t-shirt and went down the road.

To give you a gauge of how pretty this section of the road was, I took 44 pictures today.

I got a little bit closer to being frustrated about my slow rate due to the frequent picture-taking.

But I didn't actually get upset.

I started feeling guilty when I didn't take a picture of something beautiful.

But then I realized there was going to be something else pretty to look at around the corner.

So the ride was very nice. Lots of pretty views of the beach. I ate my lunch in a town called Yachats and saw a whale very far in the distance. I was very energized the whole day, so it didn't seem very difficult even though it was about 63 miles.

I started noticing that my bike bumped up and down a bit when I started going fast and it happened every time the wheel rotated. It had been happening for a day or two, but I finally got around to looking at the tire to see what it was and saw this.

The rim had cut the tire because it was under-inflated and it was a kind of cheap tire. So I stopped in Florence and bought a brand new tire at a combination Bike and Guitar shop. That's my kind of combination!

I only had a few miles left till I got to Honeyman State Park, where I would stay for the night. I rode into the hiker/biker site and was surprised to see that there were already 6 people there! The most people I had seen at the hiker/biker sites was 3. I went around the site and talked to the other bikers. Some were heading north for various reasons and some were heading south. Later on that evening a couple pulled in whom I had met along the ride, so that made a total of 9 of us at the site. So we all packed into the sites. I didn't get my own personal picnic table, but it was pretty cool to get to meet all those people. I also had the joy of eating 8 hotdogs for dinner (my personal record) along with a beer from some Portland microbrew.

I took some time before sunset to go over to the sand dunes that they had in the park and took some pictures, but my batteries died, so I didn't get many.

So it was a great day with perfect weather, good scenery, and cool people to meet.

I was woken up at 3:30 in the morning because a tree fell down in the woods just about 30 feet from my tent. Scared me half to death.

Day 11

Well after a short riding day and then a nice rest day, it was time for me to pick up the pace again. Today I went from Cape Lookout State Park to Beverly Beach State Park, which is approximately a 65 mile ride. It was a somewhat cold ride with a good amount of rain in the afternoon, but was absolutely beautiful, so that made up for the cold and the rain. I took 27 pictures, to give you an idea of how pretty it was (27 is about 22 more than usual).

The day started out with probably the nastiest climb in all of Oregon for the route I'm taking. I spent a lot of Day 10 worrying about the climb because you look at it on the elevation chart and are intimidated. It starts at about an elevation of 10 feet and ends at an elevation of about 850 feet. No breaks along the climb, just a straight uphill. Well the climb was quite tiring, but I took it slow, enjoying my new granny gear and several stops and I made it up without too much difficulty. The view back was rewarding.

Just when I started descending the other side, I saw two cyclists stopped, taking pictures. Being a sucker for good views, I stopped to take a picture. They were a couple around 55 years old from Utah and were in town for a marathon on Saturday in Newport. I had a good conversation with them and then we took pictures of each other and headed out.

The rest of the day was a bunch of riding for a half mile, taking a picture, and moving on.

I took so many pictures that I was almost frustrated that it was slowing me down so much.

Almost.

I made it to Beverly Beach State Park, which was a mediocre campground. I was hoping for beach side camping with a name like “Beverly Beach,” but the hiker biker campground was about as far in the campground as we could have been from the beach. It was cold anyway, so I just got inside my tent to read after making dinner.  

Day 10

Day 10 was a rest day at Justin's house in Tigard, OR plus a car ride to Tillamook, OR. It was very nice to just sit around and do very little. I just did some laundry, posted some blogs, ate a bunch of Justin's food, and then got a ride out to Tillamook that evening. It was great seeing Justin and meeting a few of his friends, so I need to visit the Portland area again, only for more than a day next time.

Come 5:30, I rode my bike up to Justin's work to save some time for the ride out to Tillamook. It was only 3 miles, so I think I can still consider it a rest day. We were able to cram my bike and all my bags into his Honda Accord and head out pretty quickly. It was a very pretty drive with no traffic thankfully. There were lots of hills and the sky was nice and sunny with several clouds in the sky. There were several farms on the hillsides, which I thought were beautiful. The closer we got to Tillamook, the better the weather got. I had heard it was supposed to rain that night, so I was surprised to see the nice weather.

As we passed through the mountains, Justin had the brilliant idea to make a video of us talking. Sounds awesome huh? So I propped the camera on the dashboard and we made this video, which is a very poorly made video full of exagerations and outright unnecessary lies. It's also very long. Nevertheless, here it is, for your viewing pleasure. (If you didn't know, Justin and I used to record "radio" shows on cassette tapes. It was called the Jon and Justin Show).

When we arrived in Tillamook, we stopped at a pizza place to grab some dinner and watched the Cardinals-Giants baseball game. After the 8^th inning, we left the restaurant to head to my campsite 10 miles away and made it there just in time for sunset.

As we drove around the campground Justin noted that being out there at the campground made him happier than usual to be sleeping in a nice warm house tonight. I just nodded thinking to myself, Yeah, I hope it doesn't rain. We said our goodbyes and I believe Justin took a video of me riding off into the sunset. Speaking of the sunset, it was awesome and my campsite was just about 20 feet from the beach.

I have a feeling the Oregon coast is going to be awesome.

Day 9

Today was the shortest day yet, just 35 miles from Scapoose, OR to Justin's house in Tigard, OR. I scored a sweet camping spot under a pavilion the night before, so I planned to just hang out there till the afternoon so I could get to the house by 6. Thankfully Justin offered to open his apartment during his lunch, so I packed up quickly and headed to his house.

The ride to Portland went by fast despite the never ending rain. Then the ride through Portland was less entertaining than I was hoping for since I only witnessed one hipster. Justin informs me that there isn't anything unique to Portland besides the hipsters and whatnot. 

I did run into another bike tourist who was taking a rest along a steep hill in Portland. He had just started his Trans-America tour today from Portland to Virginia. He looked completely exhausted, so I realized that I'm in better shape than I thought. The hills of the 101 will be the deciding factor however. 

Anyways, I got through Portland and headed toward the apartment. I turned on the road Justin lives on and went down a mile. The house was just a half mile away and a heard a Beep-BeepBeepBeepBeep-BeepBeep. Ah it was Justin, driving up behind me in his silver Accord. He drove ahead so I knew where his driveway was. As I got closer, I saw Justin walk around the corner with a camera. "Are you taking a video?!"

Day 8

May 30

Today I finally made it through Washington! One down, effectively 4 to go. Yep, California.

I was really worn out by the time I arrived today. It was probably the flattest day, but it just seemed long and Oregon greeted me with a head wind for the last 20 miles. I rode a total of 67.69 miles today-my longest day yet.

 It was a mostly boring day until I got to Longview, WA, just at the border. I ate some lunch, took a 15 minute nap and tried to pass through the town. You know how nice it is when you're driving through a city and you realize that all the lights are timed correctly so that you get a green light every time? Well when you're going biking speed, those timed lights end up giving you a red light every single time. I rode about 10 blocks and got the red light ever time. It couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it was even though it took me forever to get through town. This made me realize that my route-making skills aren't as good as Adventure Cycling's route-making skills. For the ride to Portland I had to do google maps and I didn't do the best job.

I got through Longview finally and started crossing the Lewis and Clark bridge over the Colombia River into Oregon. The route to Longview followed the Cowlitz river, which seemed like a quite large river, at least compared to Colorado rivers. I knew the Columbia must be huge in order for the Cowlitz to fit into it. It was the second largest river I've ever seen in person, second to the Mississippi, and definitely the biggest river I've crossed by bike. Well I rode over the bridge and it was officially the most annoying bridge I have ever gone over on a bike. It was a 2 lane road with a good shoulder on each side, but the problem was that the entire lane was covered in wood and bark chips. I mean COMPLETELY covered, making biking across the very long bridge a pain in the rear.

After crossing the river I had a slight head wind for the rest of the ride to Scapoose, OR. I took a break at a pull-over and sat down to take a 15 minute nap and a state police officer came up to make sure I was okay. Yep just taking a nap here on the side of the road. Don't mind me.

I pulled up to my campground, which was an RV park, and pulled my little bike into one of the huge spots for RVs. If your bike is confident it can park wherever the heck it wants to. As I was filling out the payment envelope an old lady, who was the campground host, came up and started talking to me. She was really nice and very interested in the trip, so she asked me for my blog address and told me that if I needed anything at all to just ask her. She told me to set up my tent under a pavilion in their field since it was supposed to rain that night. Sweet!

Later on that night 2 other cyclists pulled up and started pitching their tents. I went over to meet them and they were just starting a Trans-America tour from Astoria, OR to Maine-A ridiculously long ride. One of them had experience doing a short tour before, but the other guy was just as new to touring as I was. So we were able to joke about how we have no idea what we're doing, complaining about heavy bikes, long hills and rain. While I was talking to them, the campground host came back over carrying 3 glad-ware containers. "Here's some apple pie for you boys." We couldn't help but laugh because her generosity completely surprised us. We said thank-you, talked for a bit longer then headed to bed.

Day 7

May 29
Today I rode from Elma, WA to Lewis and Clark State Park, just north of Toledo, WA. You may have noticed that I haven't posted very many pictures. Well that's because there's not that much to take pictures of, but today I'll demonstrate this to you by showing you several uninteresting pictures.

Just about 15 miles out of Elma I waved to a farmer who was checking on his cows. He waved back and asked me where I was going, so I stopped at talked with him for a while. He was a goofy looking guy who looks like he spends a lot of time alone on the farm and was excited to see someone else. He thought it was curious that so many cyclists rode by his house and I told him about the maps that I bought and that they are very commonly used among touring cyclists. He added, "And if they took a different route they wouldn't get to see all these wonderful farm animals!" Who wouldn't want to see a bunch of cows.

 I don't know how the conversation got to this point, but at some point he started telling me about plowing. Whenever you plow, you kick up a bunch of mice that were living underground, so the crows always gather around behind the plow to get the mice. Apparently there is occasional eagle sitting on a tree a ways away while this is happening and it will fly in, scare off all the crows, and have all the mice to himself. The things you learn from farmers.

The road 5 miles after the farmer

People in these parts are so resourceful, they use old garden hoses instead of barbed wire

I kept riding and passed through Centralia, WA where I ate lunch. After lunch the road rudely greeted me with a 2 mile long, 500ft climb.

Looking back on the climb

After the climb I was hoping for a nice long downhill, but instead, there was a bunch of flat riding and then a really steep 15% grade, really short hill that I got to go down. I hit 39.8mph, which is my top speed for the tour so far!

The road not too far from camp for the night

I arrived at Lewis and Clark State Park, set up camp and did a bunch of reading and eating till it was time for bed. It was a pretty boring day, but it was nice to be camping again. I feel like I have so much more time in the evening when all I have to do is eat and read. It's more relaxing that way.