Back to reality

Getting up with the smell of bacon and eggs was wonderful. I'm sure all of us had forgotten what it was like to wake up without a sense of duty. All of George's friends, and ours too, had cooked breakfast for us. Then they all pushed us out of the campsite so they can take pictures of us as we rode along the highway.

It was a fairly easy ride. Nothing much happened and the scenery was the same the whole way down, beautiful. After looking at constant beautiful coastlines and beaches, I started to feel as if everything was the same. I wanted to get to the California border as quickly as I can but we had to make a stop at Harris beach, 7 miles from the border.

The campsite was great and we saw our friends Kelly and Matt. We also met an older touring crowd, David and Richard. They were heading the same way too.

Night came in quickly but we were able to make it out to the beach for the sunset. The setting of the sun marks the end of the day but I just don't understand what is so great about it. People were practically lining up at the beach to watch it. Right after it was finished, I mean immediately right after, people just got up and left. I just don't understand.

Head in the clouds

So it was raining. Once again, we got up late hoping the rain would stop. It did for a bit so we quickly got everything together, ate like five PB&J sandwiches and headed off. Matt, Kelly, and Steve were still doing there own thing when we left, and the other two had gone ahead.

There were two big climbs that day. The first one went well; I was first on the the top :). By then we were head up in the clouds. I had to turn on my rear light so cars didn't have to run me over to realize I was there. The descent was fun until we hit the other hill. That one didn't go so well for me. I took a few stops, just taking my time, and eventually got up it. And again we were in the clouds. It started to drizzle but that was a welcome thing because we were already drenched in sweat.

When we got up that other hill, we passed through some trees and it seemed to teleport us to another world. We were pretty high in elevation but everything was sand with surrounding trees. I literally stopped and looked at Heidi and said, "This... is wild."

We went through the day until our last climb. A bunch of other cyclists were head up the mountain too. Heidi and George beat them up the mountain, even though they were riding with no gear. I went up a bit after, taking a small break at the bottom. I spoke with a man that happened to be their scout leader. I assumed they were a boy scout troupe. They were also doing a small tour from Astoria to Florence. They weren't carrying gear because they had support vehicles that carried everything. Lucky them. Well anyway, I beat most of them up the mountain anyway. I showed those kids whats up.

We took a small side trip to the Devil's punchbowl. It was a caved in sea cave that churned water during high tide. Pretty cool. We got into camp to meet up with Connor and Josh again. It's always fun meeting the same folk at different campsites. We also met this cool fella named Derek that was trying to get back to Portland to catch a flight. This other guy named Adam came in pretty late and he was taking the same route as us. Maybe we'll see him on the road again.

A change of scenery

We woke up to rain. What a disappointment. I had another flat tire--funny thing is that Heidi and I heard it go flat the night before but we thought it was the sprinklers going on.We got up and rode out of Washington like no other. We hit the bridge going to Astoria. It was a beautiful sight seeing such a long bridge until we actually set foot on it. It was LONG. It took us about 20 minutes of furious riding, remember the headwind, to get across. What made it worse was that there was no bike lane, we were riding with the cars. Oh and I forgot that it was raining too. Oh and there was that huge climb at the end of the bridge. How did I forget that horrible thing?

Well we got across in one piece and were in Astoria for a little tiny bit. Afterwards I found out that the Goonies, Short Circuit, and Kindergarden Cop were all filmed there. I punched myself for not stopping there longer and regret it big time now.

It rained and the headwind was ridiculous for the rest of the day. We stopped in Seaside for food and a bike shop because Heidi had broken another spoke some days before, this is another time not the same one. So for a few day George and I were carrying Heidi's rear panniers.

We got down to Nehalem Bay and saw our friend Conner again. George, the other one, happened to be there too. We also met a high school teacher that was touring too. His name was Josh and he came all the way from Oklahoma. All of us were heading down the same way.

Oh the Disappointment!

With our gear cleaned and bodies showered, we left the campground in high spirits. We only had 30 miles to go because we wanted to camp one last night at Cape Disappointment. Yeah, we didn't really know why we wanted to go there either.

On the road we passed by Conner and chatted with him a bit. A bit further up we met this other guy named George, he was from Vancouver. He is a funny guy and he was doing the same trip as we were. Actually he was heading down all the way to San Jose. I'll probably be travelling with him for the last leg of the tour.

Well we ate our lunch and Conner came rolling by laughing at us.

It was only 30 miles away but we were beat when we got to the Cape. The headwind was so strong that we were sprinting just to get to a normal MPH. Well practically collapsed at the park and it took us a few moments before we were able to set everything up. The beach was nice but extremely windy. Then George said he wanted to do a hike to the lighthouse and he said we'd regret it if we didn't do it. We went and he complained the whole way about the torture of hiking.