Odometer: 3078 Mileage:43.9 miles
How do you begin a journey of 1,300 miles? With the first step.
Today, Tia and I cycled 43 miles, from Astoria, Oregon to the Nehalem Bay Campground.
We were given water by a stranger, offered advice and tales from a veteran cyclist [who] offered to let us stay in his house. Matt brought us to the beach. JohnE brought me to Portland. He is almost home now.
Part of this quest of mine is to meet people and get to know people, but especially to be able to find kindness in strangers.
Our trail today, followed highway 101 along the Oregon coast. We went up a few really long hills. But we did it!
1. So glad Tia came with me
2. So grateful for my sweet JohnE and the extra hours of sleep we stole.
3. So grateful that JohnE gave me a blessing at 3:00am
4 So grateful for hot showers at the end of a long day
5. So glad to be doing something like this!
July 5, 2011
John and I drove to Portland and stayed a few days with my sister and her boyfriend, Matt. We had a great time cruising Portland, eating doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts, spending time with my other sister, Lisa.
The night before we left, we went to a BBQ in honor of Jenn H. She had been sick for a really long time and her health had been diminishing. It was her birthday. Friends gathered at the house to play “Corn Hole,” eat great food, and socialize. Jenn was on cloud nine to have her family and friends there.
As a birthday present, her friends had collected money to send Jen and her husband on a long belated honeymoon to Hawaii. There were a lot of tears shed that night as the couple held each other and thanked the kindness of sweet friends.
JE and I left there to go finish packing for my trip. I was so nervous. In my research of cycle touring, a man had written about a cycle tour he had been on with a woman who hadn’t practiced riding with her panniers. The day of the trip, on a fully loaded bike, she found out that she couldn't steer her bike and only after an hour of practicing in a parking lot, could she manage her bike at all. Not only had I not ridden with my bike fully loaded, I hadn’t installed my front rack! We spent part of the day outfitting my bike.
That night, I slept poorly. Finally, around 3 in the morning, I asked JohnE if he would pray with me for comfort. It soothed my soul and comforted me. This whole trip had come together so miraculously, I had no choice but to believe that it was a blessing from God that I was doing it. All my supplies came to me in a way that was not a financial burden, the time to be able to travel over the holiday weekend was perfectly timed for both JohnE, Tia and myself. Everything worked together to get me going. And because of some terrible circumstances that had recently happened to me, I desperately needed to be going.
The alarm was set for 5:30 am, with every intention of getting up and leaving the house by six. However, JohnE and I slept, snugged together spoon style. We finally got up around 7 and left around 8. John had really wanted to drive me to the coast, but he had a thousand mile journey of his own to drive that day, back to southern California. Matt kindly took the responsibility to get Tia, our bikes and all our gear over to the coast.
We found a parking lot near the Washington/Oregon boarder and fit all our gear onto our bikes. Now, laden and heavy with rain gear, camp kitchen, food, warmer clothing and shelter, was the real test of my bike. I had gotten clipless pedals only a couple weeks before, and was still nervous on them (one of the first things I had done was to fall sideways, still locked into my pedals). With the added weight on my handlebars and behind me, I set off on a small, tenuous ride around the parking lot. As I clipped in, I could feel my bike (named Little Red by the guys back home at the bike shop) come into her own. This was what she was made for. This was where she belonged. The stability of a fully loaded bike is amazing. I was completely comfortable and thereby comforted as I steered around the car-park a few times.
Tia and I said our adieus to Matt, and headed off across the Youngs Bay Bridge. This first bridge was one of the longest on our route. The shoulder felt minimal and rough, with our new wider bicycles. Getting across safely was our first major accomplishment.
As we headed down the coast on Highway 101, the tourist traffic was outrageous. Through each small town we battled exhaust at each light, passing cars who had passed us multiple times. We met Matt at a little Mexican restaurant for lunch in Seaside. After lunch, traffic seemed to calm some and we traveled the beautiful coastline past Cannon Beach, where huge rock formations jut out of the sea.
Our water bottles were on empty around Hug Point so we pulled in to find a water fountain. The parking lot was full of cars, but we navigated around the perimeter to the rest area. The drinking fountain was cemented in. There was no water to be had there. I watched a family getting ready to leave the park and asked if they had any extra water bottles we could buy. Thankfully, they were glad to share. Thank heaven for human kindness.
Along the coast is a series of narrow tunnels with no bike lane or shoulder. On the southbound side of the tunnel is a button for cyclists to push to notify motorists that there are bicycles in the tunnel. These tunnels were an uneasy place to ride, with what felt like impending doom following close behind. Some of the tunnels were even on an incline, so getting through them was particularly difficult. And ever present for me, was that dreadful feeling that I was going to fall sideways into traffic because my feet were attached to my bike with new pedals and shoes!
Oregon is a beautiful place to ride a bike. The sweet little villages that hug coves are welcome resting places. People are kind and curious. The trees and foliage are lush, the scenery beautiful. Around every turn in the road is yet another spectacular site.
Hills were a bit of a problem for me, at first. After I had returned home, I was talking with Tia about our first days together. She told me that she wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it after she saw me on my first 500 foot hill. It really worried her. That first day, we had two 500 foot hills at the end of our trail. I think I wanted to cry on the second hill, it came fast and was nasty. But Tia became my granny with a whistle, our little joke from the Triplets of Belville. It got to the point that even after Tia went back home, I could still imagine her there, yelling encouragement and telling me to just keep going.
Flying down the last hill into Nehalem, I discovered the importance of always wearing eye protection, as a large insect splattered on my face, so close to my eye.
We stopped in Manzanita at a market and locked our bike out front to a post. We foraged the store for food: Salami, greens, bread, hard cheese, yogurt, fruit--we gathered both dinner and breakfast for the morning. My kitchen consisted of a backpackers gas stove, a backpackers kettle and eating kit that included a foldout spork and a mug that was large enough for a bowl, a backpackers frying pan, a sawed off wooden spoon, a rubber spatula without a handle (incredibly useful as a spatula and for cleanup), a 20x36 inch piece of plastic that I used as a table cloth (a grand luxury but also very useful for feeling like there was something clean to prepare food on--it also became legend with other bike tourer I camped beside), a half kitchen sponge, dish soap, a good knife (short but with a sheath), a tiny cutting board, a variety of herbal teas, salt, pepper, thyme, pepper flakes, and olive oil. I lived with that kitchen for a month, cooking almost every night and morning.
On the way out of the market, we discovered a man walking around our bikes, looking hard. He circled a few times. As we approached, he asked the usual questions: where we were going, where we were coming from, how long, etc. People are so curious! Being so close to our campsite, we were vague about were we were staying that night. He offered space on his pull out couch. We declined explaining that it was our first night out and that we were pretty excited to sleep by the ocean. He told us about some of his bike tours, including one that took him and several other people from San Fransisco to Washington DC. He had a couple pieces of important advice: one, always make sure your tires are pumped to the proper PSI, and 2, ride close enough together that cars don’t have to leap frog. One of his team mates on his trip across the US had permanent brain damage from going down after her tire was just squishy enough...
Tia and I rode into the camp ground. At a lot of state parks there is an area reserved for hikers and bikers: people who come into camp by their own means and need no place to park a car. These spots are on a common ground. Our first night, we set up our little tent and made dinner. We wandered down to the camp shower area and washed ourselves in luxuriously hot water, the washed out our clothing, hanging it on a string I hung between two trees, to dry. As the sun was setting, we walked out on the dunes. It was such a beautiful night. With the ocean roaring in the background, I called my JE to see how he was doing. He was still on the road, driving home. My heart ached for him to be there with me.
It was his idea that I should do this trip. Yes, I had wanted to do it, but it was really just a pipe dream. But after other dreams had been so tragically shattered, and I was on a path to self destruction, he saw that I need to do this, and had faith that I would be guided and watched over and protected. I am so grateful for his insight and encouragement.
As Tia and I fell into our sleeping bags that night, another camper pulled into camp and began setting up with a radio blasting classic rock. There was not much that could have kept us from sleep that night, just loud neighbors.
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