Washington State and Oregon Coast Tour
Day 4, 95 Kms.
The next morning we packed up a little leisurely after breakfast, seeing as how we had already made a head start for this day's planned mileage on the previous day. We went back into Rochester to pick up the ACA route from there and avoid riding Highway 12, which was quite busy with narrow shoulders, and the main route to the I-5, which we wanted to steer clear of. The weather was still co-operating and we were enjoying the ride when Tim and I noticed that Larry's new wheel had a small wobble! After checking it out we found some loose spokes, which Larry tightened and trued the wheel again. It seemed that although the wheel had a good hub, good spokes and rim, the builder hadn't been too skilled; in fact, the wheel would need periodic fiddling with for the next few days! Centralia was not far away though, so we persuaded Larry into purchasing some spare spokes at the first bike shop we found, just in case!
After the bike shop visit we hunted out some food and went on our way. From Centralia to Castle Rock we once again encountered loose dogs and in one area a whole pack came out from a house yard. I'll swear that there was a dozen of them, small an medium sized, all yapping and trying to snap at our ankles. We shouted "NO" at them and slowed down our pedalling - as it seems that the thrashing legs of a cyclist seems to get dogs agitated - and luckily we cruised away unscathed!
At Castle Rock, we turned 8 Km off the route to find our home for the night at Seaquest State Park. Unfortunately, we arrived a little to late to visit the Mt. St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument Interpretive Center, which is located on the park property. The centre was still open, but we would have been too rushed to visit properly in the time that was left before closing. So we contented ourselves with cooking and eating; and listening to Tim' s noisy stove!
Day 5, 129 Kms.
Oatmeal and bananas for breakfast left me raring to go, as we were to ride our last in Washington State before crossing the Columbia River into Oregon.
The road from Castle Rock was once again on a back road route and proved to be quite winding and hilly. Some of the areas we rode through were quite run down and the housing that people were living in was unquestionably dilapidated. Lots of run-down trailers, broken down cars and pigs in the dirt that was once a front yard. We kept our fingers crossed that we wouldn't break down there! After a while we came to Ocean Beach Drive or Highway 4 and had a much more pleasant ride alongside the Columbia River to Cathlamet. The ACA route takes one across the Columbia at this location which seems to be a preferred alternative to the long and high bridge crossing at Astoria.
We only had a short wait for the ferry boat and we watched it crossing from the other side. As it came closer, we saw that it was quite small compared to the ferries that we see on a normal basis in BC, and also much rustier! But, the price was right and we didn't have to paddle, although after a visit to the "head," I could see how poorly maintained the vessel was!
We had some of our own snacks on the ferry and disembarked at Westport, Oregon. Highway 30 was our route into Astoria and it was a main road with good shoulders .Although the road and weather were fine, our "Welcome to Oregon" was marred by some redneck in a pickup truck, who was travelling in the opposite direction, throwing a bottle full of yellow liquid of dubious distinction (read urine) at us. The bottle was very close to hitting us, but fortunately sailed over our heads and landed harmlessly in the ditch. Boy, were we mad though! The trouble was though, that the jerk was long gone before we could get his license plate number or a good description of his truck. Thankfully this was an isolated incident and the rest of our trip was not spoiled by the performance of one idiot.
It was quite windy when we arrived in Astoria; we looked up at the long bridge, as we rode below it, and were thankful that we weren't crossing at that time and battling the strong crosswinds and bridge traffic. We continued on, stopping for groceries in Warrenton and beer in Hammond, before proceeding to our first campsite on the Oregon coast, at Fort Stevens State Park. Wow! this park was huge! What a difference to Washington State Parks; this Oregon park was much nicer, cleaner and had better facilities. We hoped that all the others down the coast would be as nice. They even had a cappuccino bar in this park! The hiker/biker area was deserted when we arrived and we only had one fellow cyclist show up later in the evening. We chatted with him for a while and found out that he was travelling north. He gave us some tips on the coast route south, with regards to areas that he had ridden recently.
A couple of beers, dinner and a fruit pie for dessert made up the evening. I did some laundry, not much really, as I always tend to wash one pair of my bike shorts and a jersey daily. But it was still nice to get some of the other stuff cleaned up and smelling nice - for a short while anyway.
Day 6, 100 Kms.
This first full day on the Oregon coast confirmed all that I had read on the subject, and that is, that the Oregon coast is not flat! There are no mountains to contend with, but there are many long slow climbs all the way down the coast. Also, winds in the summer tend to be from the Northwest, so for the most part, we had a tailwind while travelling south, making the climbs a little easier, Often as not, the climbing was rewarded with magnificent views from the summit of the hills.
Our first port of call was the town of Seaside, which is one of the more well known towns of the Oregon coast. The town's beaches and commercialisation reminded me of many seaside towns in Britain, where I was born and spent 24 years of my younger life. The only things missing were the donkeys and deck chairs on the sands (the Brits reading this will understand!). We tried to find a place to fill up on pancakes, but all the restaurants were fairly busy, so we settled for a bagel shop; bagels and cream cheese...yummy!
Cannon Beach was an ice-cream stop, then just after passing through Arch Cape, I caught up to one young lady cycling (read, struggling) uphill with a really loaded down bike. In front of her was a fellow running; he was thin as a rail. Their story was that he was running from Alaska to San Francisco and she was the "support vehicle." They were both from Britain and she had all their accumulated gear on the bike, hence the struggle. I chatted for a little while, wished them luck and then left to negotiate the tunnel at the top of the hill. The tunnel had a push-button activated warning flashers that alerted motorists to the presence of cyclists in the tunnel, good idea! Even so, there was hardly any shoulder in the tunnel and I put the "pedal to the metal" and hurried through. Traffic noise was greatly amplified in the tunnel, and at one time I thought there was a big truck bearing down on me; when I looked in the mirror, it was a small Honda car just about to pass me! I passed another couple of cyclists stopped at a rest stop and waved to them, I thought that I might see them them later and I was right.
The ACA route turned inland after Nehalem, but we elected to take the coastal route of Highway 101 all the way to Bay City and our camp for the evening. Bay City has a good municipal campground in the middle of town (it's a very small city, and even calling it a town is stretching it a bit!), nice grassy sites, but the washrooms were a disaster, no lights, no door on the stall, very dark and dingy! We washed up a bit, pitched our tents and welcomed the cyclist couple that I has spotted earlier. The were from Switzerland and we had a good chat with them and ogled their bikes. One of the bikes had no rear derailleur, but an internally geared rear hub (Rohloff), very expensive addition, but the owner attested to its superior shifting and other advantages. In fact, the whole bike was custom built with many top of the line components.
We didn't feel like cooking, so we decided to go out for a meal and a cold beer. Also, we needed change for the camping fee to deposit in the box, if we could find an envelope. Only three restaurants in Bay City and only one was open, so that eliminated making choices! After dinner we bought dessert at a corner store and headed back to camp. The camp caretaker, (bit of a scruffy guy) soon appeared and asked if we had paid, we said "No, but we didn't have change and besides there are no envelopes for the fee." We complained about the state of the washrooms and he said that he had just cleaned them, I guess we had different standards! He quickly gave us an envelope and said, "That'll be $30.00 for the three of you." "How much?" We replied in unison. We pointed out that the sign clearly stated, $10.00 per night, per space. And that all our three small tents were in one space (campsite). Well that started a real discussion, and Tim was getting pretty upset. The caretaker backed down after a while and agreed to only rip us off for $20.00. We paid begrudgingly and off he went. Our Swiss friends only had to pay $10.00 as they only had one large tent. After a little while, a young fellow came along, he was a local teenager and was very interested in our bikes and our trip, so we talked for a while and eventually the discussion changed to the way we thought we had been ripped off for the camping fee. The young guy said, "Oh is he trying on the per tent fee again?" "Yes," we said. It was then explained to us that this was the caretaker's first job since being paroled. We didn't venture as to his demise and thought better of arguing with him any more. Our young friend said that he would report the problem to the town tourism committee. We asked that he didn't do that until the next day, as we preferred to have an uneventful night!
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