Heading South : OTHER CYCLISTS

I've met other touring cyclists these past few days! You have no idea how stoked this makes me! 

It started on a couple of the first few recommended detours off route 101. First another touring cyclist passed me. Then I passed a trio, one guy who was just riding up for a day ride, but the other two were apparently touring and apparently trying to get a LOT further that day. (30+ miles further in Newport, where I'm currently writing this blog post from) Considering I was actually faster than them and that I reached Lincoln City at sunset they must have had a very, very cold night.

 The day rider, who has also done some tours in the past. I couldn't grab a picture of the other two.

Aside from that, I didn't see anyone else on the road until I hit the campground. I did catch a bunch of great pictures though!

And...once I reached the campground I ran into a group of ~5 other cyclists! After dismounting my bike promptly fell over, dislodging a number of my miscellaneous items, including my flask full of scotch whiskey. Once the cyclists noticed the flask I was instantly welcomed as a friend; around their camp table everyone else had themselves a bottle of beer to warm themselves in the cooling night.

After that we basically just spent a few hours shooting the shit about various topics, ranging from global warming, cycling, the politics, etc. Just whatever came to mind. As you might expect, pretty much everyone present was of a rather...liberal mindset, so I fell into my typical habit of playing devil's advocate wherever I could find a leg to stand on. All in all a fun night. I also spent this morning chatting up everyone else at the campground until around 10, when I couldn't put off leaving anymore.

 

One of the cyclists left very early in the morning, before anyone else but me was up.

 He also had a trailer!

 Candid photo of everyone else.

 Today's ride was rather cold, as the fog rolled in early on and never left. However, there was a golden lining to this, for when I stopped to catch a picture of the super thick fog I met yet another touring cyclist, this time from France!

Apparently he took off two years to travel all over the world, basically quitting his job and just going wherever he feels. (My immediate thought : "I like the cut of your jib ser") This was actually his first day on tour, as he had just recently bought his bike + trailer for about $200, before now he was just traveling from skate park to skate park meeting people and letting those meetings launch him further across the country as he rideshares and tries to reach other people his current acquaintances put him in contact with. I gave him a few pointers from personal experience to help ease his first few days on this new segment of his adventure, passed him a few maps, rode about 20 miles,and eventually shared a meal and lengthy conversation with him. He just left about an hour ago as he wanted to get ~20 more miles done today.

 That's fog blowing up from the ocean up the mountain that the car is driving under.

And that's why I'm so happy and excited! I'm finally meeting other crazy people who don't balk at the prospect of biking for hundreds of miles over weeks or months!

One last comment. There are probably only two days left on this small adventure of mine. I've determined that Amtrak is the only really viable way to get back to Seattle, and the only remaining stop that makes any sense to ride back from is Eugene, Oregon. (The next stop is a few hundred miles and at least a few mountains southeast) Given that there is only 50 miles to Florence, and that there aren't any places to sleep between Florence and Eugene there are really only those two legs left on this tour. So I'll be stopping this tour where I began my last tour. There's something poetic in that isn't there?

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll post again from Florence, but I promise I'll give an final ride update from Eugene, and I'll do one recap for my own purposes on what worked and what didn't work when I get back to Seattle.

As always, thanks for reading!

Heading South - A long overdue post

Edit: Updated to add pictures. Enjoy!

Hello everyone! Sorry about the delay on this, a few things just kept getting in the way of getting this post out. I don't have a lot of time now either, so I'm going to do the best I can to get this written as fast as possible. Please forgive any spelling errors, and the fact that I'm leaving out all of the pictures this time. (That part of the process really takes a fair amount of time to do. I'll see if I can't add them back in later today)

I spent the first day in Astoria exploring and resting up; at least once a week you should take the day off to give your legs some time to heal. Despite the weather report all week it didn't rain that day. I've really lucked out this trip so far, as aside from that first bad experience its been sunny and mostly cloudy every day. Anyway, with this great weather I just wandered around the town, going wherever I thought would be interesting.

The first place I went was the Astoria column. Its a pillar, placed at the highest point of the city, with murals depicting the history of the area covering it. Unfortunately it was currently undergoing renovations, so I wasn't able to actually walk up it, but it was still pretty interesting to look at! Apparently this is the second restoration that has been done on the column, and since they recently found the template the original artist used it should be better than the first restoration!

Also, I was able to get some good pictures of the area around Astoria - even with the column being off limits it was still the highest point in the town - and I was able to get a really good look at that "terrible" 4.1 mile bridge.

After that I wandered down the "Cathedral Tree" hiking trail back towards the town. It is (obviously) named after a tree that has an opening that sorta looks like a cathedral. I was underwhelmed by it, but I snapped a picture anyway.

A little while after that I found this bed of sea lions on the eastern pier of the town. They literally were covering every available surface, and making an enormous amount of noise. I wish I could have caught a video of it, but when I first went over and was staring at a few of the closest sea lions I apparently wigged a few out and caused a massive abandon ship at the end closest to me. It was pretty funny.

After that I finished the day by going to the seafood restaurant all the locals were recommending I go to. One of them in particular talked up the calamari and scallops, and said this would be the place to try them since I haven't had it yet. Both tasted OK, but since this was a fish and chips restaurant and they were deep fried I'm not convinced I've had the full experience. (You could deep fry grass and it would probably taste good).

I stayed on in Astoria the next day as well, since a tour guide I happened to meet told me that the annual "Brew Cup" was taking place starting Friday evening. (He had me at Brew). I started the day off with a light bicycle ride, and since I was staying in a hotel I was able to leave my gear back in the room!

The first place I headed was the Fort Clatsop state park. Basically this is where Lewis and Clark stopped for the winter to prepare for the trek home once they reached the pacific. It was a nice distraction, as they have reproduced the "fort" based on Lewis or Clarks notes and specifications, and it probably looked very close if not identical to the reproduction, and would have been located within meters of it.

After that I headed northward to see the shipwreck of the Peter Eredale, an English shipping vessel that washed aground in the area and was abandoned. As with the Cathedral Tree, I was a little underwhelmed, but that may have just been because I had higher expectations after having to carry my bicycle on my back over the sand to see it.

I finished off my exploration by traveling to Fort Stephens, the site of the only attack on a US military sight since the war of 1812. (I'm not going to belabor this, but this is a prime example of why I always roll my eyes a bit when people talk about the US going to "war") I snapped some pictures of the bunkers that were manned against the Japanese submarine attacking the fort, but what I thought was really interesting was the peace memorial. There's a memorial near one of the defensive gun sites that is dedicated not only to the US soldiers who defended the fort but also the Japanese soldiers who were attacking it, along with the message that "May the peace between our nations be everlasting."

After that I headed straight over to the Brew Cup! One quick thing I have to note about this before I start; at this point in the day I have eaten literally two things, a cliff bar and a small bag of peanuts.

This event was basically for showcasing the products from the local microbrewss, and I think amounts to a scaled down version of the Fremont Oktoberfest celebration I had to miss when I went on this tour. They sell you a cup for 9 dollars, and 4 ounce tasters for one dollar each, which comes to 20 dollars for a cup and 11 tasters. I went through these tasters rather fast, keeping one as a memento, which means that I consumed 40 ounces of alcohol (varying from 4 to 8 abv) with almost no food in my stomach. I'm not going to lie, I was...a bit unsteady on my feet as I left for dinner, and was in no state to make my planned blog post. I did find about 5 new beers I like in the process though!

Side note. Why are there so many IPAs up here in the west coast? I've found a few I like on this trip, but probably because everyone else's tongues have become jaded by the constant hops most feel like a sledgehammer of bitterness into the mouth. In fact at the brew cup sixteen out of the forty beers were either pale ales, IPAs or IRAs!

I got an extremely late start the next day due to me having to do my laundry, get breakfast, and finally find myself an Oregon map. When all was said and done I think I left at 3 or so, which is terribly late to start riding. (Ideally you should be leaving at 10 at the latest) This made the ride rather hard, as I didn't have a lot of time to rest up after a few hours of riding, and there were some rather severe hills on the route too. But I did eventually make it to the state park and put myself up for the night. I did catch a few nice pictures, but other than that there isn't much to say about Saturday.

Addendum : I also got to experience my first ride up one of the infamous Oregon tunnels.

And...I had a similar start on Sunday. This time it was because it was so damned cold in the morning that I just didn't want to get out of my covers, and when I did finally leave them I spent a good few hours trying to determine how on earth I was going to get myself back to Seattle and figure out how to use my camp stove without burning my hand off. (I think I can make it to Eugene, OR which has an Amtrak, but that's the furthest I can go).

This time I opted to stop in the town of Tillamook after a short ~30 mile ride. Part of this was because it gets cold after dark, and I'm just not about that life. Part of this was because I didn't want to go over the hills that follow Tillamook. Part of this was because I need to offload some things and send them back home via a local post office. And part of it was because I wanted to use a hotel wifi to write this. Everything worked out well except for the hotel wifi, which is nonfunctional. As a result I thought I'd have no option but to put the blog post off for another day until I realized that I can turn on my phone's local hotspot to at least get this much out. And now we are here.

In any event, I really need to head out right now so I can make up some of the ground I should have put down yesterday.

Thanks for reading!

Heading South - Vicariously observing others' passions.

Surprisingly, everything went according to plan yesterday. I was able to get up at 5, get my card, and get all the way to Astoria Oregon by the late evening. I've realized that the bike portions of the blog are probably the most repetitive and boring of the lot, so I'm just going to get that out of the way at the beginning, and try to include only the relevant details.

For the first time on this short tour I broke 50 miles in one day! I feel a little ashamed of that fact considering my baseline used to be 70, with a stretch goal of 90 or so, but I'll take what I can get. Also, two days ago I got the impression that my legs were finally adapting to the abuse I'm putting them through, and yesterday confirmed it! With my balance of periodically replenishing calories iand taking breaks every so often the last 15 miles of the day actually felt easy! Of course this was my second or third wind of the day, and I think when my legs finally did give out there would be no recovering from it...but still, progress!'

The bridge into Astoria was hyped up as this horrible experience, super dangerous, you might die, etc etc. I'm a bit confused after actually crossing it, because I didn't think it was THAT bad. Sure there isn't a wide shoulder, but there was actually a shoulder. Sure it was 4.1 miles long, but most of it was flat. Sure there was a really steep bit at the end for some reason, but I've gone over steeper on this trip. It probably helped that I crossed it after dark, as there were fewer cars crossing.

This time I actually can say that I biked across that body of water. :D

Anyway, on to the more interesting things I saw yesterday. As I mentioned previously, I did need to get up at ~5 to catch the morning bus out of Raymond. However, I almost still missed it because the bus stop had been relocated due to the stop's road being blocked off due to road work. If not for a lady in one of those espresso shops being around to give me directions I would never have found it. Second note, it costs 50 cents to go the 30 or miles or so from Raymond to Aberdeen. 50 cents for 30 miles!

Once I reached Aberdeen I fell into talking with a rather...interesting character. He was probably about 20 years old, had some sorta sad looking dreadlocks (the hair for a few inches off of his head wasn't in dreads, just looked like a weird hodgepodge) and had just been released from prison on bail. Topics ranged from why he was locked up (got into a fistfight with his dad) to very hippie spirit and soul stuff (cremation spreads your "essence" while internment keeps you earthbound, etc), to longboarding down Seattle hills at 25 miles an hour (how is he alive?). Not by any means the highlight of my day, but certainly interesting enough to warrant a mention. 

A few hours later I had successfully made it to Elma, grabbed my debit card, eaten breakfast, and made it all the way back to Aberdeen. Thing was, I had two hours to kill until the next bus to Raymond. So I flipped my phone open and looked for interesting things in the area, and I found that Kurt Cobain actually grew up in this town, and that there was a memorial park about a 15 minute walk away. I'm not in any way a Nirvana fan, but I had some time to kill so what the hell right?

The park itself was rather small but thoughtfully put together for such a small town, with a few statues and plaques. It rests next to a small bridge that Kurt apparently sat under when it rained a lot in his childhood, and what he based the song "Something's in the Way" on. 

This is interesting, but as I'm not a fan it didn't really grab me. However, what I found a lot more interesting was messages left by his fans who came to pay homage. There were messages scrawled into the park benches...

the park table...

 

and an enormous number spray-painted underneath the bridge.

He must have touched a lot of people for this small memorial in his home town to have this much of an outpouring of emotion. I wanted to include the full list of pictures I took of the messages as a Picasa album, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to move photos into a new album. Terrible user interface. If any of you have experience with that please drop me a line, I could use the help.

Since that didn't kill all of my time I also visited the local Star Wars shop, which is truly something to behold. Outside of the shop there is a mural...

The telephone poles have been turned into lightsabers..

And there was just so...so much Star Wars paraphernalia inside...

Especially interesting to me were the following three things : Apparently John Cena has visited, and purchased something at the store...

The owner has a Leia tatoo, and apparently there are a LOT of people with Star Wars Tatoos...

And finally, that there was supposed to be a imperial senator in episode 3 in a body paint outfit that was pulled from the movie at the last minute. (George Lucas said her outfit had nothing to do with it. Suuuuuuure)

Between the Star Wars shop and the Cobain memorial I was able to keep myself occupied until the bus arrived. Only real thing left to mention about Aberdeen is that right before I left I ran over to a small 7-11 type "mart" and was surprised to see that they were selling a whole assortment of bongs!

Once the bus had returned me to Raymond all that was really left to do was thank my hosts from the previous night profusely for all their help, drink one beer for the road and then head out. However, right before I left I asked them why they had dollar bills plastered all over the walls, and they responded that the previous owner simply had EVERYTHING covered that way, and while they cleared off most of the walls they left a small portion as a memento. Since they, people have taken an interest in the little quirk of their tavern, and they're starting to re-cover the walls with bills left by patrons and travelers. Of course I had to  contribute one of mine!

Hanging off the ceiling behind the bar are the new set of bills they're holding onto until they have enough.

After that the only thing left to do was make it the 50 miles to Astoria in time to get dinner and lodging. Considering I left at 2:30 and got there at 8:00 which I already covered at the beginning. I really need to head out on the town now and start exploring, especially since it isn't actually raining today! I'll leave you with a few of the silhouette statues I saw leaving Raymond on my way south.

As always thanks for reading!