May 27th
May 27, 2019
Milepost ~545
Packed up fairly quickly this morning (but not as quickly as many of the folks we shared camp with who rolled in close to dark and rolled out close to dawn - those are at 9ish and 6ish these days at my latitude!), wolfed down the leftovers from last night, said goodbye to Michael, and rode up out from among the trees, into the mist. The sun was not seen today.
Once again my familiarity with the area helped me mentally prepare for what I knew would be a tough start - right out of hte campground, the first huge climb of the day and hugest one I have planned on this trip started. It was misty and got mistier on the way up so I was pretty soaked by the top, but dried out a bit on my way down to the bottom of the other side where mist was less of a thing.` Glad to be done with that climb, although it took a lot of work to get up it with my overload. I did jettison a quarter gallon of “extra” water for the climb (well, I climbed with it still in my stomach I guess :P).
I wasn’t quite early enough to avoid all the toy hauler traffic to/from Sandlake where people go play on ATV’s, but since most of my morning wasn’t on 101, the traffic wasn’t that big to start with.
Rolled into Pacific city for beer and lunch at Pelican brewery, chatted with some other touring cyclists from the campground at the coffee shop where I posted yesterday’s blog and got a bit warmer and drier after eating lunch, but before continuing onwards. Saw a lonely truck on the beach outside of town, and later found out through facebook that it was my friend Matthew’s truck as he took a picture and posted on facebook, that looked remarkably similar to my view from the (lacking) shoulder on the way up the blind-corner-hill just north of town. I’ve ridden it before, and it never gets better. Yesterday I discovered you can ride most of the way around town, but not around that hill (the turnoff is right at the top of it). So, I guess I’ll ride it again someday as it’s been en-route for more than one tour thus far in my life - being within a day of Cape Lookout (favorite close-in bike camping destination).
Second tallest climb on this amazing off-highway route (similar to on-highway climb), halfway through the day. It was on “historic scenic highway 101” which was an offshoot to the east of the normal beach highway 101 that I’d rejoined just after lunch. That road is a gem and not sure if I took it last time (it adds a couple miles to the route but it doesn’t add the climb which is present no matter how you go and isn’t on the coast either way), but should have. The “oregon coast bike route” signs even point to it. So glad I went! The road WOULD have gotten an A+ (very low traffic, deeply forested, probably less than 2 dozen people
Just before rejoining 101, that scenic road hit a separate connecting highway in the 3-horse “town” (let’s call it a junction) of Otis, where I ate a pronto pup. It was neither prompt (clearly handmade to order) nor pup-sized - I couldn’t even finish it since it was intended as a snack but was lunchsized. Anyway kept me fueled until the evening, and I did NOT get a picture of my bike in front of this pronto-pup vendor as I did the last one, since there was a distinct lack of huge corndogs at this “no really we’re the original” pup vendor. Oh well. It was tasty!
Next, rode completely around Lincoln City; thanks again ACA map! I hate Lincoln City - it’s crappy, and especially crappy for bikes to the degree that I won’t even spend my money there (in protest, and yes, I did once write to the chamber of commerce complaining about the situation, thanks to Steph Routh’s encouragement), and the ACA map has a total route-around on a nice road just east of town that was a WAY better ride than the oops-where’d-the-bikelane-on-this-busy-road-go? path directly through town on the highway. There is substantial situational improvement in the south part of town as they’ve finished the road construction in that part of town to include a legitimate and complete bike lane, but I don’t have to change my opinion of the place based on that alone, even if it is better than it used to be.
On the road there were several scenic viewpoint pullouts and whale-watching locations and I saw 0 whales, but did see a lot of gorgeous coast. And also…a fence around some cliffs. And outside the fence, a railing around a hole:
So of course I had to go over the fence to check out the railing-hole, and it’s I guess around a sea-spout where the surf (far - at least 50’) below can crash up enough to spurt out this hole in the ground. Tide wasn’t high just then so no spouting was happening, but you can still see that hole that I broke the rules to go see:
There was another prettier one that you could see through more better:
Then I cruised the last couple miles into town and checked into the cheapest hotel in town, which feels like the cheapest hotel in town, but that’s fine, get what you pay for.
First thing I discovered there, looking in a mirror for the first time in days, is that I am quite sunburned. I haven’t been sunscreening well while it was cloudy but turns out UV still happens; will sunscreen tomorrow to avoid being completely tomato-colored about the head which is a distinct possibility if things continue apace.
I walked to a great Thai dinner through town, checking out the “world’s smallest harbor” and seeing what carnage the end of the 3-day weekend opening the “high season” was like and the answer is that most stuff was closed. So I walked about a mile to find the last open restaurant that wasn’t hoity toity or seafood, and had delightful and super filling Thai. On the way I discovered Depoe Bay’s love of pocket parks, which is real and awesome!
I’m rolling slowly towards the end of my trip - probably two short days ending tomorrow night, at the extreme end of where I can get an easy bus back towards the main corridor in Oregon where Portland/Salem/Eugene are located and where I can get home from without hard planning, or without riding 100 miles with a midway primitive camp stop, over the mountains, which is the usual way home from here, and which I’m not super interested in doing.
Written by Chris McCraw who resides in Portland, OR but maybe his heart is on the bike?