Day 7 - Monday, July 2, 2012 - Rip, ride, and whiskey

We busted out a century ride yesterday, so today could be a casual low mileage day (54miles)...not to mention we also wanted to check out Oregon's sand boarding scene.

A tailwind pushed us into our half way point at lunch, where we all indulged in delicious veggie quinoa burgers on local sourdough bread. We soaked in the sun while let our food digest, and made friends with a dog on the roof of the establishment.

At this point we've seen many other cyclists taking advantage of scenic 101, touring as well.

Upon entering Florence, we pulled right into the Sand Master Park to sand board. Sand boarding has been dubbed as a cross between snowboarding and wakeboarding - but after trying sand boarding, we'd like to think of it as a mega rip off. We had a totally gnarly sand board shop chick help us out - she was pretty stocked about this 80s fad and had us sold on the $16 per board fun we were about to have. Worst $16 ever spent. The board needs to be constantly waxed to move consistently on the steepest of inclines. I can see why this sport never really took off.

We gathered groceries from Safeway and made our way to Jessie M. Honeyman State Park to set up camp. We were selective with our campsite and had an excellent meal followed by dark chocolate s'mores. We enjoyed the fire Mike so diligently created with a cup of whiskey and classic rock on the iPod. Great night.

Day 6 - Sunday, July 1, 2012 - Mr. Blue Sky

We finally caught a glimpse of the sky in Oregon! Although we still had clouds, we were lucky to have a rain free day and catch some sun.

We left Manzanita early after consuming pasta and pie leftovers from the prior night. On our way we stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory. Here we observed the process of cheese making and sampled the dairy - cheese and ice cream. At this point we met a pair from Eureka, CA riding the Oregon coast. We ended up running into them several times throughout the day.

We conquered a mega climb, which took us to an elevation of of about 812 feet. There was a group of paragliders taking off from this point. We were interested in riding tandem with them, but decided abandoning and then retrieving our bikes would be a problem.

Amazing vistas greeted us to our right as we ventured south along the coast. We set up camp at the South Beach State Park for the night. We had an amazing day and clocked our second century at 102 miles. This will give us more time for extra curricular activities tomorrow!

P.s. why am I the only one in this group who knows the song "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO????!!!

- Melissa

Day 5 - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - Oregon, wet and wild

We started off the day on the 8am ferry from Washington to Oregon. This was also the start of a day of climbs in the rain. We rode through the rain until we reached a logger's diner around 26miles. After eating an enormous amount of breakfast food, we took off and headed to Astoria (location of Goonies film). In Astoria, where people seemed pretty angry at the local Safeway grocery store, we picked up 101, the Oregon Coast Bike Route.

The rain persisted and so did we on the climbs. After 71miles we tried to find shelter in Manzanita. Most hotels had no vacancies in this quaint coastal town on the weekend, but we were able to find a room at the Bunk House. The bunk house was a trailer park/motel/nail salon. We took advantage of the local laundromat and grocery store....cleaned up and made a delicious pasta dinner.

Day 4 - Friday, June 29, 2012 - The yurt takes away the hurt

We rode out of Centralia with sunny skies. Lunch was consumed in the parking lot of the grocery in Toledo, WA -population 968. We rode through dense pine forests, miles of perfect road with little to no traffic, even though the hills were killer. A lot of the scenery was agricultural with many horse, cow, goat, buffalo, and alpaca pastures. We also saw a good amount of deer along the way. At one point Mount St. Helen's was in view, according to DJ.

We rode 79 miles to Cathlamet, where we spent the night at the Cathlamet Marina in a yurt. The yurt was equipped with a heater, outlet, and table - perfect.

Additional day 2 photos

Photos from our wet, hill climbing day.

Photo credit: Corey

Day 3 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - Century to Centralia: flats on flats on flats

We rode out of Seattle this morning with the morning bike and car traffic. Our route took us around Lake Washington in the morning and Mt. Rainier was in good view on our sunny morning ride.

As we made our way out of the city, Melissa got a flat in her rear tire- due to a super large staple. Once we replaced the tube and reassembled all panniers, the tire went flat again. The situation was handled again, using the patched tube from the original flat and we were off!

Next stop was at a local fruit stand. We indulged in fresh strawberries, melon, and cherries. We met a woman who spent a semester at the College of Wooster and many pleasant locals who were curious about our trip. After consuming way too much natural sugar, we rolled out but we're quickly stopped by another flat tire on Melissa's bike. Apparently the patch job did not hold up. We're getting really good at changing flats at this point.

The rest of the ride can be summarized by driving through a military area where they do some sort of training, and dogs of all sizes and shapes running with us behind fences barking.

We rode the last 30 or so miles in a light drizzle. Half of this was on a fairly empty bike path, which was a nice change from the road. We made it into Centralia, 103 miles logged, with no campsite around. We took rest at the Travelodge, where we prepared dinner in our camping stoves and took advantage of the continental breakfast in the morning. Tomorrow should be a lower mileage day.