Pacific City, Oregon

Cape Lookout

Sandlake Recreational Area

Day 9 = 29.9 miles
Total = 335.5 miles

Tough ride today....lots of long steep hills. Saw a bald eagle!!!! I can mark that one off my bucket list. Beautiful scenery. We rode through Sandlake Recreation Area - it is a really cool area where high winds blow beach sand up the mountains to create sand dunes. Residents have to have a permit to remove sand from their property.

Ended the day at Pacific City. Someone left a comment yesterday about this place. We stopped in at the local micro-brewery and had pizza and beer. We are staying at Webb County Park. They have these adorable black rabbits EVERYWHERE. We appreciate and love everyone's comments...please sign your name to them - they are showing published from "anonymous" so we have no idea who is leaving them.

Considering taking a day off tomorrow....we aren't tearing up the miles but we are really working hard for each and every one of them.

Tillamook, Oregon

just outside Cannon Beach

on the way downhill to Manzanita

> Day 8 = 43.9 miles
> Total = 305.6 miles
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> We started our morning with a breakfast of bagels and peanut butter with jam.....yummy! We began with three bagels which changed to two thanks to a very bold chipmunk. The bagel was bigger than he was. But he didn't keep it all, there was a huge bluejay that had eyes on it.
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> Met another bicycle tourist today, Robert from San Diego. He is out on his own following pretty much the same route we are for a while. He is riding for cancer. He is trying to raise money so check out his web page "Cycle2cure".
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> Beautiful landscapes today. We had one really long climb...but the screaming downhill made it all worthwhile. That, and one of the best BLT's I've had in the city at the bottom-Manzanita. We were starving and fortunately this pub was one of the few places open at 1pm (do people not eat lunch in this town???). Donnie also raved about the salmon chowder they had.
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> We continued on through a nice flat stretch (for a change) and ended up in Tillamook. They are famous for cheese so naturally dinner had to be mac 'n cheese. It was delicious...my compliments to chef Donnie. In fact I want to thank him for a number of things: his patience waiting for me to climb all these hills, his carrying most of our supplies (easily over 70lbs) and most of all his knowledge and experience that is making this so much fun.
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Cannon Beach, Oregon

Say what???? !!!!!

Cannon Beach

Donnie and Chris

Day 7 = 28.8 miles
Total = 261.7 miles

Went to the local bike shop that was nice enough to receive Donnie's fedex from REI. The name was Bikes and Beyond and I highly recommend everyone to do business with them if you are in the Astoria area. I also got a new handlebar bag. My other one just wasn't staying secure enough to not rattle constantly.

On the way out of town we ran into another cycle tourist.....a guy by himself, Chris. He was going down to San Francisco. He was having some mechanical issues so we directed him to our new fav bike shop.

Nice ride south. Looking at the elevation map of the ride today, we were expecting a very steep climb on part of the route....turns out we should have paid more attention to the distances and not just the rise. It wasn't particularly steep but it was long. I only stopped to rest then kept onward. I didn't walk at all......progress!!!

Settled into a really nice camping spot (with laundry for a bonus) with bunnies and chipmunks running around. Went into town for supplies and dinner. Ran into Chris from this morning again! Small world.

Astoria, Oregon

Just off the ferry

hot chocolate and coffee - yummy!!!!!

Day 6 = 32.5 miles
Total = 232.9 miles

We were excited to move into a new state today. Started the day taking the ferry across the Columbia River. We met the nicest couple while on the ferry. They had a summer home here and showed us pics of the 20 lb. salmon he caught off his deck! Earlier we made fast friends with a chunky black cat while waiting to get on. Reminded us of our pups and cats back home. We are so lucky that we can be gone this long and know everything back home is great.

Lots of ups and downs today.  We just barely got our raingear on before getting rained on and off for much of the day.  Some long climbs up but the long downhills were appreciated ! Had lunch in Knappa Junction and continued westward. We stopped to chat with an Oregon State Trooper who was parked on the side of the road and gave us a map of the state. Between the ferry ride and this cop, we got a great first impression of this state!

Rolled into Astoria....got a hotel room for the night. Have to pick up Donnie's new cycling shoes tomorrow morning that he ordered from REI.

Cathlamet, Washington

Day 5 = 38.1 miles
Total = 200.4 miles

Reminiscent of 'My Cousin Vinny', we had incessant train traffic near our camp all night. nice. still slept hard !

Today we rode from Castle Rock, WA to Cathlamet, WA, a ride of about 38 miles. We knew from our map that this would be a pretty hilly and challenging ride, but we set out to get it done after coffee and an early brunch stop. As expected, longer hills early on, but none too steep. In addition, we had numerous weather changes throughout the day; we had a pretty steady rain at one point. We stopped on a sweet downhill near Cold Creek to chat with a local rider named Art who was quite conversant in local bike touring tips. One thing we noticed along the way were the many small waterfalls coming down through the hills we were climbing. Lots of continued pretty and densely forested land.

Once again Susan did wonderfully with all the climbing and I have to say I'm very impressed with her improvement, thus far. We've gone five days now, not too many miles, but we've had lots of challenging riding to make up for it.

We ended up today at an RV park with cheap tent camping. We have been doing well thus far with cheap camping accommodations. we will enter Oregon in the morning for our first state line crossing and we expect to reach Astoria, Oregon by tomorrow afternoon. I have had a clothing malfunction over the last two days: my cycling shoes have begun to literally fall apart so I had to make an Internet order from REI to have new cycle shoes waiting for me at a bike shop in Astoria. No problemo.

Coal Creek General Store

Castle Rock, Washington

Day 4 = 45.9 miles
Total = 162.3 miles

Turns out our sweet RV park we stayed at last night was right next to a railroad crossing where they have to whistle at the crossing......AT 5am!!!!!  We still slept well and were resdy to start the day.  Had a couple of pretty steep hills today.... also some long climbs. I would loved to say I motored right up all of them, but there were a couple I just had to walk up.  

We ran into another touring couple going north starting from San Francisco (Christine and Ian).  They were on a tandem and were really efficiently loaded up for the trek.  We wished them well and off we went again. After they left we realized we should have warned them about the really nasty steep hill we had just come down.  It was exhilarating downhill - I got to 39 mph!  It was completely unrideable going up.

We finished up the day in another sweet RV park just north of Castle Rock.   Let's hope there aren't trains......

Mt. St. Helens - what is left of it

Just beautiful countryside

Centralia, Washington

Day 3 = 60.2 miles
Total = 116.4 miles

Enjoyed the unplanned hotel.  Made a Safeway run for fresh bagels and we were on our way.  On the way to Elma saw a deer in the middle of the road.  If we had been in a car that would have been an "oh shit " moment but on the bike it's a "oh wow" one.  Ran into another couple touring on bikes from Australia (jill and bruce) they were headed south to north.  We traded some logistics and experience info then wished them good travels and we were on our way again

We were greeted in Elma by the air raid siren going off.  I realized we hadn't watched the news or seen a paper in days.  It could have been the end of the world for all we knew.  Had lunch at a little burger joint since every other restaurant in town was either closed for good or at least just for Sunday.

Nice ride through a valley to Centralia where we stopped to camp in an RV park for the evening.  Not as scenic as the state parks but it has a great shower and laundry facilities.  First chance we have had since leaving on amtrak for laundry.   

From Donnie:  I just want to give props to my honey Susan for her cycling chops especially with hills starting out.  We are having a great time riding and camping.  We are well on our way along our great adventure.

A christmas tree farm outside Oakville

having a great time