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.