"A record day! My longest yet."
I woke around 8, devoured 4 or 5 danish butterhorns (hey -- they were small) and Stuart and I hit the road together. We started with a long, one-and-a-half mile climb, and quickly overtook most of our campmates. We rolled down the other side of the hill then settled into some nice, smooth riding. Five of us rode together: myself and Stuart, Ted and Sean (two Americans on road bikes without the right gears for going up hills), and Ivan, a guy from Nelson, BC. After about 10 miles the latter 3 split off for breakfast and Stuart and I continued on our own.
We stopped for lunch after 25 miles then took the scenic route off the highway and into the hills. It was an absolutely beautiful stretch of road -- no cars, lush green trees, and quiet. You really appreciate quiet after being on or near a highway for a month. The road climbed up for a mile or so, then took a long, leisurely, winding downhill before rejoining the highway. Stuart and I had a tailwind and we cruised along at 15 to 20 mph. Our cycling abilities seemed to match up quite nicely.
"We also get along nicely. We talked most of the day -- about nothing of significance -- but we established a good rapport."
The day ended with another nice hill, followed by some not-so-nice hills. The difference? The nice hill was a long, solid up followed by a nice long down. The other hills I call "rollers". Short ups and downs that break your rhythm and spirit. But, we rolled into camp into the late afternoon feeling quite good.
"Except, the day didn't end. We quickly set up our tents in the hike-bike camp (without paying...I feel so guilty), then headed into Newport, about 5 miles south. That's why the day accumulated so many miles.
Our destination was a brewery about which Stuart had heard some good things. We finally found it -- Rogue Ales -- and settled down for a little beer tasting. 8 samples for $3.50. Yummy. The samples covered a good variety -- blondes, ambers, browns, and stouts -- and included some nice flavored beers: chipotle, ginger, and cilantro (a "Mo Ale", my favorite), and some others.
We then cycled (somewhat unsteadily) to the Rogue Ale restaurant, a mile or two away, where we enjoyed 2 pints each, with some fish and chips and oyster shooters. I had a Marion-Berry Ale and a Mo Ale. Overall, I'd declare dinner a triple-yummy."
We headed back to camp and arrived just as the sun finished setting. Everyone had gone to the beach to watch the sun set, and now there was a big crowd heading back into camp. I hung out on the beach for a while with Sean, Ivan, and Ted, then headed back to camp myself.
"1000 miles! Quite a milestone. Let's party."
I woke up at 8:00 and bummed around camp for a while. I tried frying bread for breakfast, but all I got was a burnt pan. This was some sort of English recipe that Stuart had convinced me to try, but my stove just doesn't go low enough to make sautéing possible.
"Wrote some postcards, packed up slowly...generally dragged out the time because I would be leaving Stuart behind and I hate goodbyes. Y'know."
I arrived in Newport around 11:00, and dropped off some film for development. I had been bitten by the kite bug, so I went shopping. A few stores later I walked out with a mini stunt kite. I had all-you-can-eat Kentucky Fried Chicken (rated as "almost yummy" in my journal), picked up my pictures, and then mailed them and my postcards home.
"Headwinds was the word for the day. All day.
I didn't get out of Newport (about 8 miles from the start of the day) until 1:00 pm, so the next 40 miles I did all in a row, just slogging it out.
On top of the wind, it started to rain for the last half. Not hard, but a misty rain that sneaks up on you then POW! -- suddenly you realize you're wet."
I rolled into camp and had package-o-noodles-with-remains-of-coleslaw-package soup for dinner. Yummy. After dinner I made some phone calls home then had a shower. I hadn't had a shower in 5 nights.
"Then, I grabbed my brand new kite and headed for the beach.
Kite flying is pretty hard. I put the kite together OK (almost) but when I unpacked the strings (2 of them) they were wound together. I tried untwisting them, got they tangled, and so I decided maybe they were supposed to be twisted.
Got a kid to hold the kite, and took some test flights. Nothin' doin': the kite would just keel over and nose dive, every time. After a few unsuccessful tries (with the kite falling apart every time it hit the ground) I called it quits. I then realized that I had neglected to install one of the cross-braces. Oh well. It was starting to rain."
Back at camp I discovered neighbors: Lucinda and Laura, from England. They were driving from San Francisco to Eugene for a wedding.
"Tomorrow I'm going to Honeyman Park, to play on the dunes with my kite. It's a short ride -- maybe 20 miles. I also need to do laundry -- really badly."
"Another good day."
I got up at 8 and was on the road by 9. After cycling for a while I arrived at the world-famous Sea Lion caves. $6 didn't seem worth it, so I kept on truckin'.
I cycled for another hour and arrived at Florence. Lunch was all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut for $3.99. Double yummy. After lunch it was only about 4 miles to Honeyman State Park, where I set up camp.
My family had driven down the Oregon coast when I was about 9 years old, and Honeyman State Park was one of the places (actually, the only place) I remember from that trip. I rode my bike to the lake, and remembered catching salamanders there 14 years ago.
Around 2:30 I cycled back to Florence and bought some reading material (Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi) and an ice cream cone ("Oregon Trail": double chocolate, raspberry, and hazelnuts. Triple yummy).
In the spring of 1996, when I first saw the advertisements for Independence Day, I knew it was a movie I just had to see. Before I left on my trip, I swore that wherever I was when it came out, I would stop and see it. Well, Florence was the place, and I really enjoyed the movie. However, you may recall that I mentioned earlier how much I needed to do laundry. The shirt I was wearing while watching the movie had traveled about 200 miles over three days. It stank. I tried wearing a jacket to contain the odor, but that just made me hot so I started to sweat, adding to the fragrance. I felt so sorry for the people sitting around me.
After the movie I did my laundry and had dinner: Jo Jo's (seasoned steak fries) and egg rolls from the Safeway Deli, complete with way more condiments than I needed. Had to restock the pantry, you know.
After dinner and laundry I rode back to camp and wandered around, but got pretty bored. Stuart didn't show up so he must have turned east, where he was expecting to find work at a big state fair. I talked a bit with my fellow campers then hit the tent.
"They're having fireworks in Florence tonight so things will be banging away. Tomorrow we go 60 miles to Coos Bay. California is only 3 days away."
"My flashlight batteries are dead so I've got no light so this is going to be short."
I got up around 8 and hit the road a little after 9 with a good tailwind. The winds were heavy all day -- mostly tailwinds, but the odd side wind that threatened to blow me right off my bike. Because of the heavy winds I made good time and rolled into camp around 2:30. I went to the beach and promptly fell asleep in the sun.
"Ahhh..."
After dinner I met a cyclist from Québec who is also riding to San Francisco. He also happened to be the vice president of the Quebec Kite Association, and he knew a thing or two about kites. What he didn't know, however, was how to make a kite fly when there's no wind. Sunset Bay is in a sheltered cove, so there was nary a breeze to be found.
I watched the sun set (it is Sunset Bay, after all) and took plenty of pictures, then walked back to my campsite. I had been pretty cold at night, and talked to the gentleman from Quebec about it. We have exactly the same sleeping bags, and he's been toasty warm. The difference is that his tent doesn't have huge ventilation windows letting cold air in. My tent is definitely a summer tent.
"Blah day. No energy."
Awoke, ate a cantaloupe I had rescued from a farmer's stand the day before, and hit the road by 9:45. Unfortunately, the cantaloupe didn't hit the spot and I got hungry pretty quickly. I decided to hold off on breakfast until Bandon, but I didn't arrive in Bandon until nearly noon -- with plenty of hills before then.
"The road took us through clearcut forests. Ugly. Disease. But quiet. Few cars."
Bandon is quaint seaside town with plenty of motorhome-attracting stores. Book stores, antique stores, trinket stores, salt-water-taffy stores... everything a person could want to buy while spending their children's inheritance.
I ate two sandwiches for lunch but I was still hungry, so I bought clamstrips, fries, coleslaw, and clam chowder. After that, I wasn't so hungry.
I was feeling inspired to do some writing (of the creative variety) so I stopped in one of the bookstores and bought another writing book, intending to start writing the next day. Today was turning into such a blah day that it seemed like a good idea to take a day off.
"Back on the road. Some jerk in a brown car tells me to 'Fucking learn how to ride a bike.' I called him an asshole. People like him make me so sad."
I cycled for a while then stopped at a place billing itself as the "US's largest walking safari", or something like that. After paying admission, visitors were given the option of buying an ice-cream cone full of animal food for 25 cents. Sounds like a good deal, sure. Unfortunately, the animals in the park are vicious. As soon as they see that ice-cream cone, they attack. Some poor unsuspecting four-year old would walk in, and would barely get out the words, "Here, sheepy-sheepy" before getting mauled. The cashier warned people who hadn't been in the safari before to not buy the ice-cream cone of animal food before taking a look at the action inside. I wisely heeded her advice.
I stopped briefly in Orford to look at "Battle Rock" -- a big rock in the ocean where some people had lived while under siege. It was a war between the Indians and the Palefaces, but I can't remember who was on the rock. I'm sure you can guess who eventually lost the battle. From there, it was a short ride to Humbug Mountain State Park.
Dinner was macaroni with yummy sauce. I had discovered powdered pasta sauce a little earlier in my trip, and was making it at three times its recommended concentration. Yummy. After dinner I rode down to the beach and tried my kite.
"It flew! Yay!
So much fun. I flew it for about an hour. It didn't work great, but was still a lot of fun. Another guy showed up, and started flying his kite behind me. He was doing lots of tricks and his kite was making lots of noise -- doing loops and squares. But that's OK -- I was having fun going left, right. Left, right."
I returned to camp and found the "Alaska couple" setting up camp. We had been following the same route for the past few days. I played frisbee with my camp-mates for a while then hit the sack.
"Because I was so blah today, I'm gonna take a break tomorrow. Day after that, I'm in California!"
"Today was rest day, so I mostly rested."
I woke up around 8:00, ate some granola, then hit the beach to fly my kite. There wasn't much wind, so I sat down with my new blank book and tried writing a story. I wrote a page or two, but wasn't very pleased with the result.
"I flew my kite some more, after writing. Whee! Then the elastic bands broke, so we had lunch. Chili. Pretty good."
After lunch I set out on my attempt to climb the fearsome Humbug Mountain. Three miles and 1700 vertical feet later, I was thoroughly bored. There wasn't much of a view at the top, but plenty of bugs. Also, I was stupid enough not to wear any socks and ended up with blisters on each foot. I hiked the 3 miles and 1700 vertical feet back down to the camp, grabbed a book, and hit the beach. By now it had gotten pretty windy, so I walked north along the beach for about half a mile until I found a secluded, sheltered spot. Then, for the first time in my life, I suntanned naked. I must say, it felt rather...liberating.
"Saw two seals in the ocean.
Cleaned my chain. Trued my rear wheel.
Brian, a guy from Seattle going to San Francisco, showed up. Nice guy. We ate dinner together (curried lentils and potatoes).
Shower 'n shave.
Tomorrow, Brookins, and the day after that, California!"