Despite my silence, actually quite a lot has happened over these last couple days.
Three days ago, we started off in a yurt, launching our day into a fair weather without rain. Of course, we were nowhere near that fortunate, since as soon as we left the campsite, the rain began and never ended. The difference between yesterday and the second day was this: headwind. When we finally got to Depoe Bay, the synergy between wind and rain struck us with such force as to be able to feel it as a steep hill or to topple me when it deigned to blow to the side. It took us an hour and a half to simply ride about ten miles. At Depoe, we had a solid hot lunch, but more importantly, bought time to rest and dry off. Mike also popped us a question that at the very least Liz and I had not considered: the possibility of having the car follow us as a support wagon.
Unfortunately, as soon as we opened the door to the outside, the wind streamed into the store and chilled us so much so that as Mike walked outside, Jeff, Liz, and I took a leap backwards shivering. After finally mustering the heat to go outside, we huddled together outside laughing and giggling at every murmur, each joke: all this to distract us from the reality of cold winds and wet clothes.
We therefore were at a crossroads: to continue riding into five days of rain and high winds around "Cape Foulweather" or to hide in our SUV, drive down until the weather clears, and continue without luggage. We chose to delay a bit by taking out a local motel, even though we had only ridden 10 miles or so and was only about noon. There, we chose the latter, and gave Mike's brother, John and his mother a call. Their support wagon arrived only a few hours later and we all went out to dinner together. I was actually feeling ambivalent at the time about the car situation, but as the days rolled on, I became all the more fond of having a car around. Thank you again, John and Joanne so much, because I appreciate your help more and more every day. John, thank you for all the great food we had at your house, because I don't think I ever said that enough, and that apple cider was unbelievably good. Joanne, thank you for coming with us when we started, thank you for housing us for two days, and thank you both again for coming out in our time of need.
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Two days ago:
Well, we took a leap forward about 90 miles or so, jumping from where we started all the way to Newport, where we ate some great clam chowder at world famous "Mo's" restaurant and checked out the aquariums. There were some really weird fish and some extremely cute sea otters. I have great pictures to share, but unfortunately, my connection is too slow to upload them at this time. The chowder at Mo's was delicious, although I personally preferred the little cafe at Seaside City. Although Jeff and Liz each had their own different favorites, we could all agree that the chowder has been excellent overall. We ended that day at Florence and retired to a game of Scrabble at the Holiday Inn Express. Yours truly emerged victorious, much to Liz and Jeff's chagrin.
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Yesterday:
We spent the entire day at Honeyman National Park, arriving there shortly after breakfast at the Holiday Inn. Jeff, Liz and I went on a quest to see the sea. We started on a dunes trail, and scaled the dunes. As I climbed, I discovered that climbing nearly vertical dunes was not easy on my beat up calves and found a newfound appreciation for "Lawrence of Arabia". Every step I took that raised me higher by a foot was followed by sand slipping about 6 inches beneath my feet. That was not an easy climb. At the crest, we saw the ocean...a few miles of dunes and forest away. Our quest shifted promptly to finding the way back. After fruitlessly searching for an alternate path for maybe half an hour, finding nothing but deer trails, we decided to go back the way we came. Arriving at the camp, Jeff and Liz napped while I inhaled some literature: "Red Mars". We had Liz's amazing food (more amazing that she cooked it at a campsite) for dinner, and went to sleep soon after.
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Today:
Miles: 70!
Weather: My, oh, my, what a wonderful day. Plenty of sunshine headin' my way, Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!
Route: Honeyman to Bandon
Today, without any of the bags on the bikes, we set out from Honeyman towards Coos Bay early at about 8 or so. In the next four hours, we rode about forty five miles over two small hills (400 ft or so). Hills are infinitely easier when we don't have the panniers dragging us down. Add that to the fantastic tailwind and sunny skies that we were getting, and we had a recipe-perfect day to be biking.
After a lunch at Subway, where Jeff and Liz whined about their poor sandwiches, (my own was excellent) we shopped at Big 5 to pick up some tights for Liz. For the next few hours, she would spontaneously spread out over the floor bemoaning the excellence and comfort of her spandex leggings.
From North Bend (where we stopped for lunch), we headed off onto the "Seven Devil's Road" towards Bandon. We all hypothesized that the Seven Devils would be seven peaks, since the road there was effectively winding around the crest of the hill. Personally, I counted about 9, but I suppose that two of them didn't actually qualify as a "peak". Anyway, that was a fun ride, very windy and very up and down.
Finally, we arrived at a campsite just before Bandon and we actually reserved one of the last yurts, where I'm hammering this out tonight.
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