One down, many to go

Well, Day 1 is in the books.  Lots more to come...
leaving the hotel, starting our journey
Any path of a thousand miles begins with a first step.  Well, this journey of over 4,000 miles started with our first day on the bikes.  We started at the Hampton Inn (thanks Abby) where we dragged in our big bike boxes, ordered pizza, and put these things back together again.  Ending up with only a few extra parts, the bikes went together pretty well.  Bike boxes were deposited in the hotel dumpster, and we were ready to go.  We started out by calling and trying to confirm the status of the road openings of the Nestucca River road going from Portland to the coast.   This road avoids route 6, a major route with major amounts of traffic and little road shoulders.  After multiple tries, messages left, websites visited, and even some messages returned, we came to the conclusion - we still don't know.  Based on this (lack of) information we made the choice to simply take the bus to the starting point of our journey in Tillamook, near the coast, and meet up with the Trans-America Trail.
Portland's Union Station
Bikes on the bus

We left the hotel and headed toward Union Station in the downtown area, about a 9 mile trip through Portland.  Surprisingly we didn't find any feminist bookstores or artisinal string knot shops, but did see a few hipsters on the way.  Union Station is beautiful, and there we found the Tillamook bus, where we bought tickets and mounted the bikes to the front of the bus.  About 90 minutes later we landed in Tillamook, just about ready to go.  After a Mexican food truck Chalupa, we were set.  Finally we had met up with the Trans-America Trail, and set up the app to take us to the coast, and eventually, Virgina.  
We left for the coast and found the roads to be pretty good, and the scenery good as well.  Most of the area around Tillamook is farmland and dairy, supporting the Tillamook cheese industry.  The road quickly got worse, more decayed, and we found ourselves on the first major incline on a road that was not much more than rubble.  Thank goodness for sturdy tires - my normal bike tires would have been shredded by these roads, but these took it well.  The hills were up and down for a while, until a major incline up to a place called Cape Lookout, looking over the Pacific.  This hill, which seemed to go on forever for my out-of-shape legs, was really less than a thousand foot incline.  From that point on my legs were rubber.  I was okay on the flats and lovely downhills, but my climbing skills were spent.  We stopped in a town called Pacific City, and continued on toward our night's destination. 

The Pacific Ocean in, where else, Pacific City

May 29th is the first day that the coast would be open for business after the virus lockdown, so it was a given that this would be a busy weekend.  Knowing this, we figured we had to reserve a room somewhere.  Using the Adventure Cycling app on the Tillamook bus, I found a little town called Neskowin, on the ocean, and approximately the distance we thought we could cover.  I called about 4 places before finding one that had a vacancy.  Unfortunately they have an in-season minimum of 2 nights' stay, so we were forced to pay for 2 nights, whether we used them or not.  Looking at the forecast, it was supposed to be a 100% chance of rain for the next day, with heaviest showers coming in the area we were headed.  More by chance than by great planning, we found a great spot to stop and wait out the rain.  Neskowin is a really nice little beachside community, lots of small, well-kept cottages, happy people and happy dogs.  They have a few restaurants, one of which actually had sit-down dining, and a general store with food and take-out.  This turned out to be a gem of a find, completely by the luck of a phone call.

It seems kind of early to be taking a day's rest, but after the leg-shredding hills I faced, plus the 100% chance of being soaked to the bone with nowhere to stay, I think we made the wise strategic decision to rest on day 2.  Day 3 will be a turn in from the coast and a trip back through the coastal range headed for Salem.  I'll let you know how that turns out.  

Rest Day in Neskowin, in front of Proposal Rock

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seeing old friends

Image
  Today was Saturday, apparently.  In only a few days I have already started to lose track of “real” time.  In my world it is simply “Leaving Elkford.” Leaving Elkford today, we realized another good move made, as last night we heard terrible thunder and rain crashing down on little Elkford.  We were dry and mostly comfortable in our little haven by the liquor store.  We did get going fairly early, and immediately scrambled for breakfast and something to pack for lunch.  We went to the convenient store at the local gas station to get sandwiches, and asked where we could get breakfast.  Mel’s Diner was located about a mile away, so we rode off, only to find Mel on holiday.  Back we went, another mile, to find micro-wavable breakfasts at the same convenience store, plus coffee.  I wish Mel would have posted his holiday on Google, or whatever. The top of a very early and long uphill first thing today Finally got going, a bit later than expected.  The first thing was a 2.5 mile climb strai
Read more

Getting the band back together!

Image
For anyone who has followed the (mis)adventures of the Dinosaurs on Wheels, you know that the Dinosaurs on Wheels, or the Ryan brothers, bicycled across the US during the pandemic summer of 2020.  This trip started in Oregon at the Pacific ocean and ended in Virginia at the Atlantic.   Since that time, we have done some other, shorter trips with different levels of success.  In '21 we traveled the Ohio to Erie trail across Ohio, and I did a trip from Richmond to Caswell Beach in North Carolina along the Outer Banks.  In the spring of '22 we set out to do the GAP, or Great Allegheny Pass, which along with the B&O canal, leads from Washington DC to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, a broken bike prevented our finishing.  Now in 2023, we are preparing to do another cross-country route.  This one, however, is almost 100% off-road, traveling from Canada to the Mexican border, along the continental divide.  As a matter of fact, the route is called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, o
Read more

Saying Goodbye to the Suffer Fest

Image
  Saying goodbye to the suffer-fest I am heading out of Butte, going to the Bozeman airport, and heading home this morning. I’m ending my time on the Great Divide Trail, perhaps for a while, perhaps more likely, forever.  Bozeman Airport as I leave Montana What lead me to decide to end this trip for me?     Lots of reasons, most of which venture around one main thing: my heart was not in this ride, and this is a ride you must dedicate your heart, your lungs, your comfort, and humility to complete it. I wasn’t really doing so, so in turn this ride wasn’t really any fun for me.   I think I agreed to this trip a few years ago, when my world was completed different. We were delayed by Jerry’s health, and then Patty’s. I’ve spent almost the last two years taking care of her, only to lose her about 90 days ago. In that time I’ve pushed off work, home and family obligations. Right now was not a good time to push them off again in order for me to do something like this. During every ride these
Read more