Thursday June 4, 2015

A later start this morning, it was a very windy ride. Our first major head wind for quite a while. We were hoping to get to Otis and a campsite, but eventually  we decided to stay at a motel in Lincoln City. Please note the blue skies, that is why we have a headwind!

Ralf, my wonderful husband, took the lead throughout the whole of the ride. I tucked in behind and had a lovely ride.

We were heading up Highway 101 when Ralf stopped and indicated a loop that we could take that would take us away from the Highway for about 6 miles (10ks). I figured it was going to be another hilly ACA alternative, but it wasn’t too bad. A very quiet and scenic road which bought us to Cape Foulweather, named by Captain Cook.

This was one of the best scenic spots we have seen in Oregon. The visitors centre was really nice and I treated myself to some new earrings.

We met a lovely couple who had lived in Toronto, Chicago and now live in Seattle. We swapped stories and addresses and they have offered us a place to stay in Seattle when we get there. The kindness of strangers – what an amazing experience we are having.

The ranger at the visitors centre told us we could use the old highway 101, going against the traffic on a designated pedestrian/cycle-path, it would rejoin the Highway at the bottom of the hill.

This bridge has recently been reconstructed, the original bridge was falling into disrepair.  However, because of the historical significance of the bridge they reconstructed it using new techniques to prevent salt erosion.

One of the funny things we noticed today were the road signs to Lincoln City. We left Newport the sign said 22 miles, only half a mile down the road, the sign said 24 miles, the next sign again only a short distance down the road indicated 19 miles. We had no clue how far Lincoln City was and neither did the transportation department. However, when we came into the area of Lincoln City we realized the confusion. Lincoln City appears be a number of neighbourhoods (Cutler City, Delake, Nelscott, Ocenalake, Taft and Wecoma Beach) collectively called Lincoln City. The first neighbourhood (Cutler City) was at 19 miles the City Hall of Lincoln City is at 22 miles, problem solved.

Apart from the wind it was a lovely day. Tomorrow we head inland, it will be a bit of a longer ride to McMinnville but we have a warmshowers host.

Again we need the internet to send more emails for warmshowers in Portland.  We are staying at the Sea Echo Motel, which used to have a sea view and now only has a partial view.

We were struggling to find a place in Portland, but the last three emails, I sent out all came back positive. Todd was not available to host us, but called friends to try and help us out, how kind is that.

Fortunately we have someone who is willing to host us for Sunday and Monday night and they also have toured New Zealand, and Jasper, Banff and Canada lots to chat about.