Dune

We took advantage of our stop in Newport to do our laundry and catch up on the news. But my eye caught the Tour de France and I watched as much of that as I could. Watching those guys is definitely disheartening though. They are racing for a good 100 miles every single day while we are dying out everyday at 50 miles. The only thing we can say is, nah there really isn't anything we can say. Those guys are mutant cycling machines.

What I realized was that while our legs were getting the workout of their lives, our upper body was rapidly deteriorating. If you look at those cyclist doing the tour, their biceps are non existant. It is bad news for us because we have a big dragonboat race the three of us have to get to after this trip.

It was a long day of riding because we took many sidetrips. We stopped by this site called the Devil's churn, the devil owns many things scenic things apparently, and hiked around there for a bit. Right after that site, we climbed a big mountain that led us to a small viewpoint. I think we just climbed that for the sake of climbing because we knew it was going to be foggy up top. It was quite a difficult climb because it was our first big climb with full gear. I believe it was about 1000 feet in two miles. Pretty steep for the likes of us.

Heidi had a flat tire along the highway. George and I were a bit up ahead but I turned around and biked back for a mile to see where Heidi was. She had thrown all her things off her bike and was trying to change her flat tire. I made her do all the work so she would get a crash course on tube changing. A bike rode past us and asked if we needed help. His name was Steven and we let him go on his merry way. Heidi got everything fixed and away we went.

George had the bright idea to visit the sea lion caves. $11 to go in an elevator that brought us down to a cave filled with sea lions. Supposedly it was the world's largest, it wasn't. It was only America's largest. We met this cool guy that worked there that told us of his travels. He had biked the coast about six times now and he told us of certain spots of interest. We left the sea lion caves a bit wiser, a bit poorer, and a bit angry at George. He owed me a McDouble after that sidetrip.

We had a quick stop at the Darlingtonia Botanical wayside. We saw those carnivorous pitcher plants in their natural habitat. Then it was straight to the campsite.

I ran into that guy Adam again while walking up to the hiker-biker site. I said some hellos and headed to the site. It was filled with bikers. I did not get to meet all of them but I did meet a guy named Cody. He was heading to Montana, I believe. He started in Santa Cruz about nine days before. That meant he was riding about 80-90 miles a day to get to this campsite. Later that day we also saw Steven again. We said hello and talked a bit about our trip.

The campsite was known for its sand dune. We were a bit skeptical so we had to check it out. We walked and walked on this trail that seemed to lead no where. Then there it was. Lo and behold the biggest sand dune I've ever seen smack dab in the forest. It took tremendous strength to climb that sucker but it took just moments to run back down. George and I had a dumb long jump contest that only proved that sand is sandy.

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.