Saturday June 6, 2015

Another beautiful day on the bike. We left Steven’s house at 8:30. We knew it was going to be a hot day and needed to negotiate our way around Portland and its myriad of bike paths to find our warmshowers host.

The area around McMinnville and towards Portland has over 400 wineries. A lot of the smaller Towns have capitalized on this and have wine tasting rooms in the Town. I think this has helped revitalize the Towns in this area.

We had planned a route with Steven to get us into Portland. Then we had to find our hosts address, we found it without too much difficulty. We did have one big hill to go up. Although Portland has a grid system a lot of the streets do not run in a straight line, so we had to zig zag our way to SE 66^th.

We arrived at about 1:30 very hot and sticky. David and Lauren were out but had left the key under the mat. We let ourselves in and I decided to clean the bikes before we showered.

I gave the bikes a good clean and then we showered.

We had figured that David and Lauren would be out for the rest of the day as they had left us a note telling us how to turn the TV on if we needed to.

We went for a walk to the local grocery store and bought some wine and salad for dinner. No quiche but we did have the fixings for Tuna Nicoise, very nice on a hot day.

David and Lauren arrived home at about 9:30 pm, we had a quick chat and were in bed at 10:30pm

Friday June 5, 2015

Sometimes you just ride, because it feels good to put your head down and go. Today was one of those days. We knew we had a hill to climb, but when we got to the top, we were both surprised that this was the summit – Murphy Hill Summit 756 feet. It didn’t even feel like much of a climb, and I didn’t think it was worthy of a photograph.

As we headed inland we had a north-westerly wind, we were heading east. The sun was out and it was warm from the outset. By the time we got McMinnville at 1:30 it was 32 degrees C.

We had put sunscreen on for the first time since San Diego before leaving Lincoln City and we were very glad we did.

Highway 18 was described on the Lincoln City Bike Map as a narrow road with low traffic. The road had a good shoulder for the most part and was a busy road, lots of traffic. Most of them gave us plenty of room, even when we had a wide shoulder.

We stopped at a small picnic area and spotted our first Bald Eagle, soaring above us in lazy circles.

The scenery today was a mix of forest and rural farm lands, nothing spectacular, but worthy of singing the Sound of Music songs as we cycled through a green valley.

We stopped at a DQ that was along the highway for a pee break and decided we needed an ice-cream, sometimes the opportunity presents itself and you have to take it.

We arrived in McMinville and had a few hours to kill before meeting our warmshowers host at his house at 5:00.

McMinnville seems to have dozens of wine tasting rooms, along the Main Street of the historic downtown. We decided to have a pub lunch and had some local cider and Ralf had a stout made in the area.

A young man (Joel) stopped to chat about our tour and told us he is planning on going on his own cycle tour starting this November. His route will take him in a counter-clockwise route of the US. Down the Pacific Coast, West to East of the Southern Tour, up the eastern seaboard to Maine and then the TransAm back to Oregon. Good luck Joel – enjoy the ride. He will be taking his pet poodle with him.

After lunch we had a wander up and down the main street where we met Ben Franklin.  A piece of advice first everyone.  When sitting next to a statue on a hot day, check the temperature of the bench – it was very hot.

After burning my legs on Ben\’s bench, we headed to the library and a nice shaded place where I updated the blog.

We called Steven at 5:00 to let him know we were in McMinnville, he was home and told us to come over. When we arrived, dinner was on the stove and we had time to shower and get settled in.

Steven had a major bike accident a couple of years ago, resulting in a plate in his shoulder and a steel rod in his leg. He is back on his bike and looking forward to doing some touring in the future.

We chatted about his family, one of his sons is in Japan and he hopes to go over to see him and maybe do a bike tour with him.

We had a nice wander around his garden and chatted about gardening. Steven was a really nice guy. Later after we had cleared the dinner things away, I was folding the laundry and when I came back Ralf and Steven were chatting about the accordion. Steven’s Dad used to play one and a few years ago Steven decided to learn how to play. He gave us a quick tutorial on how they are played and how complicated they are. Two hands doing completely different things, he also had to control the baffles and concentrate on the melody. What a complicated instrument, but he got our toes tapping and we really enjoyed his enthusiasm for the instrument.

Consequently, we kept him up way past his bedtime and ours. Steven had to get up at 5:00 am and it was past 10:00 pm when we made the move to go to bed.

A lovely evening to top off a great days riding.

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.

Wednesday June 3, 2015

Once again I woke up to the sound of rain, oh well, we are going to get wet today. However, by the time we were ready to leave, it had stopped raining.

Chris lives about 7 kms outside of Florence, in a lovely wooded and lake area.

The bridge going into Florence was a little narrow, but we did manage to cycle across it without incident.

We were hoping to meet up with Christine and her riding partner Jayde today, but didn’t know if we could arrange a place to have coffee or just meet up on the side of the road.

Leaving Florence, the ride was quite hilly and my worst fear was that we would see Christine hurtling down a hill or even worse struggling to get up a hill and no place to stop to chat.

It was a foggy ride for the first half of the ride, and we had a slight headwind.

I thought if it was wet, we were supposed to have a tail-wind.

Apparently, if the sun comes out you get a headwind.

We were really fortunate, we had just passed the seal caves when we spotted Christine, she saw us and we indicated for her to pull in to a small viewpoint.

Jayde followed and we were able to have a good chat with them, safely out of the way of traffic and at the top of a hill. She is doing really well and for the most part enjoying the ride. It was really nice to see her again. Jayde asked about food, we told them about our supplies at Safeway, and the sandwiches we usually buy. I totally forgot that Christine is gluten intolerant, they couldn’t get the deals we get on the sandwiches.

Jayde asked why Ralf has the riding crop on his bike. We both responded (straight faced) that he used it to “encourage” me to get up a hill. Then Ralf added that sometimes it gets a bit kinky in the tent!! After the initial shock we were all laughing.

We stopped in at Yachats and had lunch, a nice sandwich with chocolate milk, kept me going for a while.

We then carried on to Waldport, and stopped in at the Green Bike Co-op.

I surprised the owner by asking him if he was looking forward to going to India. Janet and Stephen were chatting to them when they cycled through and mentioned it on her blog. It was really funny to see the look on his face, we told him he was infamous.

Although Waldport looked like a nice tourist coastal Town, we learned from the Green Bike Co-op that there is 60% of the area youth live in economically disadvantages homes. Green Bike Co-op is a place where youth from the community can learn a valuable trade. Green Bike Co-Op paint bikes green and leave them around the community so that people can use them – similar to the Bike Programs adopted by big cities except these are all free. You can pick up a bike cycle, wherever and then leave it. If you are using a bike there is a yellow rope tied on the bike that indicates it is in use.

From Yachats to Newport the road had a good shoulder and we were quite close to the coastline, it was very pretty.

We had been warned about the Newport Bridge and had decided to walk the bikes over on the side walk.

Ralf went to get supplies and took this great photo of the Bridge.

We are staying in a cheap motel tonight, as we are still trying to get a warmshowers in Portland.  We need the internet to do this. There are hundreds of hosts in Portland but like we have found with most big cities they often do not update their profiles when they are not available. I have sent a dozen requests and five responses – not available. The hostels do not have availability on Saturday, we may be sleeping on a park bench.

Ralf spotted this great quote today:

“Whenever I see someone biking faster than me I assume they are not going as far”

Tuesday June 2, 2015

Woke up to pouring rain. We both lay in bed for about half an hour trying to decide whether to cycle in the rain again. Neither of us enjoy riding in the rain. At about 7:30 we decided to stay an extra day with Chris. Ralf is going to go into Town with Chris and I will update the blog.

Trevor is heading south, and was undecided about continuing on in the rain. He eventually left about 12:30 pm. The rain stopped at about 1:30 and the sun came out at 2:00 pm. We could have cycled today, but tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day.

The extra rest day gave us the opportunity to have a look at the route to Portland, we are making a detour. Portland is supposed to be one of the best cycling cities in the U.S. I want to go and investigate why.

I definitely need some new cycle shoes. My Keen cycling sandals are falling to bits. I had them sewn in Cuba and then last night Ralf put them on the base board heater to dry and almost melted the insoles!

We are hoping to meet up with Christine tomorrow. Christine and Margaret hosted us in Tempe, AZ and now Christine is one her own bike tour of the Pacific Coast.

We had another good evening with Chris, chatting.

Monday June 1, 2015

A wet and windy night, so glad that we had a motel room. It was cool and foggy when we were ready to leave and it started to shower as the ride progressed. It was a wet ride.

The scenery was very pretty.  The bridge leaving North Bend has no shoulder and is very busy, we knew about the bridge as Janet and Stephen are ahead of us and I keep checking their blog.  They had written about the bridge and taken pictures.  We opted to walk our bikes over the bridge, it did have a sidewalk, too narrow to cycle along.  As we climbed out of North Bend the scenery changed again from sand dunes to forests.  Due to the rainy conditions Ralf could not get his camera out of his handle bar bag and he couldn\’t take photos of the lovely areas we were cycling through.

The forestry area, is being clear-cut, but we did notice a lot of areas with new plantations.  This area is primarily, cedar and pine trees, no beautiful redwoods here.  The route was rolling hills and a couple of climbs, the scenery ranged from forests to sand dunes back to forests and back to sand dunes and lake areas.

We are staying with a warmshowers host just outside of Florence in a beautiful wooded area. We have our own room above the garage, he has a spare room in the main house, but another cyclist is occupying that (Trevor) he decided to stay an extra night because of the weather.

Chris had made us a great salad of kale, bacon and avocado for lunch. After we had settled in, I was able clean and dry the bikes and wash our cycle clothes.

Chris is a really interesting guy, we had a great chat with him during the afternoon and evening. He made us a lovely dinner of buffalo stew, asparagus and quinoa. That should keep us going tomorrow. Although the forecast is for more rain and cool temperatures, although the tail wind.  Chris has offered to let us stay an extra night if the weather is nasty tomorrow.  We really should keep going but the bikes are clean and we really do not like cycling in the rain.

No photos today due to the weather.

Sunday May 31, 215

My friend Celeste is concerned about some of the places we stay and bed bugs. How about slugs on your pillow!! I woke in the night and felt a wet “thing” on my pillow. Surprisingly I did not scream, I got up took my pillow outside of the cabin, noticed the black slug on the pillow case, removed the pillow from the pillowcase and went back into the cabin. Of course I had disturbed Ralf’s sleep and he asked very sleepily what I was doing, I told him I had a slug on my pillow. He didn’t scream either, he assumed I was dreaming. Next morning when he checked the pillowcase, there was the tell-tale signs of slug snot on my pillow case.

Woke up to sunny skies, but by the time we were leaving the sea fog had rolled in and we were cycling in cool temperatures and fog.  Despite the weather it was a nice ride.  We passed through this small Town and had to take a photo of the Greasy Spoon Cafe, the smell emanating from the cafe indicated why it was called the greasy spoon.

The next small Town had a couple of woodworking stores.

At the back of the store Ralf spotted this nice little red number (needs a bit of work), I thought it might be a TR4, but I am not sure.

We had one big hill to climb, but the view at the top was worth it

We came into Coos Bay which is a large lumber Town, lots of lumber mills and mountains of wood chip.

We had lunch and then headed out to North Bend, an adjacent Town which is also predominantly lumber.  Spotted this Train museum on the way to North Bend, only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

We decided to stay in a motel although it was warm and sunny when we finished at 3:00. The forecast is for rain tonight and tomorrow.

Saturday May 30, 2015

A very lazy start to the day. Out of bed at 9:00, a lazy, relaxed breakfast. I eventually went to the laundromat at 11:30.

After the laundry was done, I did a very perfunctory bike cleaning, really I just cleaned the drive trains and oiled them.

Ralf went to the supermarket to get lunch and dinner. After dinner we went for a walk up to the historic life boat station.

We thought the light house was there as well, but it wasn’t.

There are some very funky little shops in this Town.

The mural on the wall of the cinema was cool, how many movies can you spot.  Yes the Sound of Music is pictured.

It was nice to go for a walk through the Town and to the life boat station together.

When we got to the museum, they were about to close, but the volunteers kindly stayed open for a little while longer.

The lifeboat station and museum is at the top of a very large hill, when they had to launch the lifeboat, they went down over 100 steps to the lifeboat. The museum was interesting, it has some rooms set up as they would have been when the coast guards lived there.  Including a very cosy loo!

Why was the station at the top of the hill? Because the lumber company owned the land around the dock and gave them the piece of land at the top of the hill for the life boat station!

We had a lovely dinner in our little cabin. The internet was very sporadic, and I was unable to update the blog.

We will check the weather tomorrow at the Port Orford weather station, hopefully it will be a  nice day.

Friday May 29, 2015

We said goodbye to the German couple and the Brit, and Ralf indicated that he had thought about his answer from last night. He told the young guy to travel as soon as his studies were finished and before he started a family. “That was the answer I was looking for” he smiled at his partner who didn’t share his view. She wanted to get started on her career and have children. It is different for a woman, the longer you wait to have children the tougher it is. I said that when you get to our age you have already accumulated so much stuff and for some people it is tough to then make the decision to leave it all behind. A lot of our friends still do not understand why we are doing what we are doing.

It was another dreary, cold, grey day along the coast line of Oregon. One of the other cyclists we had chatted to about this area told us it was beautiful. It would be if you could see it.

Our original plan was to cycle to Gold Beach, (45 kms). We were cold and wet and I was all for finding a motel and getting the washing done etc. We decided to have a second breakfast and look at our options. Option one, find a motel and stay in Gold Beach, Option two continue cycling to the State Park near Port Orford (88 kms) Option three cycle to Port Orford (90 kms) and take a rest day tomorrow (Ralf’s birthday). Option four stick to doing the 45 – 50 ks a day and keep cycling until the predicted storm comes through and we take a rest day.

After a great lunch at Double D\’s Cafe, we decided to push it to Port Orford, we were feeling good and the boat was available today so we could have two nights under cover for $29 per night and a rest day.

While we were discussing our options, the four American cyclists saw our bikes and decided to eat at the same café and then three other American cyclists heading southbound saw all the bikes and came in as well.

The importance of cycle tourism to a small community at work. If we all spent $10.00 there was an extra $90.00 spent in this Town now add the cost of accommodation and you can see how cycle tourism can make a difference.

When we left the café, we could feel a temperature change, it was actually getting warmer. We had opted to stay along the coast line and Hwy 101 rather than going inland and hills as per the ACA maps. I don’t think it reduced the distance by much but it did reduce the climbs. The sun came out and we could see the beautiful coastline.

We made really good time, cycling the 90 kms in just over 6 hours including our 45 minute lunch break.

We were a little concerned about the wildlife in Oregon.

At some stage on the Pacific Coast, I had missed the 20,000 kms mark on my garmin, we didn’t take photos or record it on the blog. We passed the 10,000 km milestone in France and had recorded the garmin on the blog. I decided that when the garmin read 22,222 km I would take the photo. The garmin clicked over just as we were cycling downhill into Port Orford.

We arrived at our little boat cabin at just after three o’clock and there was no-one about.

Ralf called the phone numbers, apparently the owner was at a funeral in California and the camp-host had been rushed to hospital after lunch as he had fallen. Eventually someone came and opened the boat for us and we got settled in to our very humble abode.

The shower block is clean and good hot showers for 0.25 cents. There is a laundromat across the road and a grocery store about 500 metres down the road.

We are taking a rest day tomorrow, it\’s Ralf\’s birthday.

Thursday May 28, 2015

Although we were up early, we were late leaving. Andreas and Emilio peppered us with more questions and we discussed drafting, eating and hydration.

I made breakfast for all of us, cheesy omelets, we shared our toast and peanut butter, but not our yogurts!

An easy ride today. The route kept us away from Hwy 101 for most of the route, which was nice as 101 looked quite busy. We saw quite a few cyclists today, I think most of them were on a supported ride as they were carrying very little.

We are now in Oregon and the difference in the car drivers is already noticeable. Although we were on quieter roads, they gave us lots of room. Californian drivers were crazy, they would overtake with little regard as to what they could see around a bend or on a blind hill.

There were some interesting buildings on the route today.  The Bank in Smith River, which is now a bar.

This house was made completely from Stainless Steel.

We kept seeing these rows, I asked a lady what they were and they are Easter Lilys that they grow for the bulbs.

We arrived in Brooking at 12:30 and had lunch in the supermarket café. Although it is cool and grey skies, we knew we had to camp and there was a hiker/biker site at the Harris Beach State Park.

We checked in $5.00 per person and then were told that the water had been turned off for a water main repair and wouldn’t be back on until 4:00.

I am getting fed up of being cold and cycling under grey skies. No sunshine in Northern California and the prospect of sun in Oregon is limited.

I really dread camping now, I hate being cold and I am looking for any excuse to take a motel and to persuade Ralf to stay in motels. Although he isn’t really enjoying the camping, he is looking at the cost of motel versus hiker/biker sites.

We resigned ourselves to a quiet, cold evening inside the tent. Then once again other cyclists showed up, Ralf lit a small fire and we had quite the gathering, two Germans, a Brit and four Americans. For some reason we didn’t exchange names, which is such a shame because the Germans and the Brit were really nice people, very interesting. The Germans had cycled in Sri Lanka for a month and really enjoyed the cultural differences. The Brit was cycling from Vancouver to Mexico, he had taken his last semester at the University of Toronto, because of the timings of the semesters (finishing in April in Canada and starting at the end of September in the UK) he could afford to take almost six months to cycle the coast.

The German fella asked Ralf if he was to do it again would it be now or at 25. Ralf’s answer was he was a career soldier, so to give up his career would have been tough for him. I said that I had travelled when I was younger, and it was fun, but doing it at this time of life is good, because we have more time and no deadlines. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

The Americans when they joined us dominated the conversation. They chatted about their travels in South America, expecting us all to be impressed. Then they looked at Ralf and I and asked where we had started from, expecting us to say Seattle. We told them we were heading north because of the route that we had already taken through the US from Tampa, Florida. “So you have done the Southern Tier before the Pacific Coast”. Well, actually we are cycling around the world! They left shortly after that.

When you have a great evening around a camp-fire chatting to really nice people, you forget about the inconveniences of camping and enjoy the experience.