Cape Lookout Oregon
I'm not sure of our actual mileage today. We rode from Nehalum Bay to Manzanita to Tillamook- stopped for a heat break and continued to Netarts, to Cape Lookout.
We woke early to get going early. We noticed our bike shorts, jerseys, my gloves, and my towel were still wet from the night before. My bright idea was to hang them over some trees in the sun to expedite the drying time. We ate breakfast and started to pack up. Tia noticed all our clothes were missing. I packed up while she ran around asking people if anyone knew anything. After a couple hours, nothing turned up, so we left and headed back to the police station in Manzanita.
Today was hard, not just because I was riding in a spare jersey and a pair of boxer cycling unders that gape in the back, but because it really pulls a number on you to be the victim of theft. Everyone seems to have done it, and if not--they want to! It was easy to think: "because someone did this to me, I'm going to (blank) to you." Weird.
Riding was quite difficult. We stopped frequently We had lunch at Manhattan Beach. I had a close call with one of those logging trucks just before Tillamook. I had no shoulder and he was 2 feet from me on the left. My right was a guard rail and a cliff. Afterward tears sprang to my eyes and a huge knot formed in my throat. My body was shaking.
Tia and I stopped in Tillamook for a few hours to pass the hottest part of the day. We charged our phones, had strawberry frappuccinos and sat in the AC then continued on. We bought oysters as we rode out of town. The kid gave Tia greater than a baker's dozen and free ice, to boot!
Life got easier when we got to camp. We are situated overlooking the Great Pacific Ocean. We dined on raw oysters, collards and mashed potatoes and bread and cheese. We talked with a kind Kiwi called Jimmy and then had hot showers. Things take so much longer when we camp.
1. Foreigners who visit America to remind me how beautiful it is.
2. Raw oysters. I had no idea!
3. Hot tea in the morning
4. Police chiefs with a sense of humor
5. John as mission control
July 6, 2011 Wednesday
Waking up that morning, I grabbed my guidebook. Tia was still sleeping. Each and every morning, before I did anything else, I would grab my book and study the days path. It was an obsession. There was a definite fear of making a wrong turn but also concern that I didn't pass anything I really wanted to see.
That first morning, I was giddy with anticipation. Tia is anything but a morning person, so my first order of business outside the tent, was to heat water for her instant coffee. Next ,was poaching some eggs for breakfast. Soon, Tia was up and hungry for breakfast.
Our campsite was in an area with a lot of trees. The noisy neighbor from the night before, was camped perhaps 20 feet from our site. We didn’t worry much about our morning noise, unconcerned about whether or not we woke the bastard. His snoring let us know, he wasn’t about to be woken up, either. We finished breakfast and started to pack up. That was when we realized our laundry hadn’t dried and hung them on trees in a clearing next to the bathrooms...
We were frantic to find our clothes. That was such a dreadful feeling. Our neighbor’s snores had ceased and our suspicions of him grew rapidly. Our thought was that in all of our packing and milling about, we did not notice our neighbor walk out of his tent in search of the bathrooms. I didn’t know about highway men at that point; the men who ride the byways of the U.S. with nothing but a bike and a tent. They are everywhere, and are opportunists. To have 2 new pairs of cycling shorts and a really nice new pair of cycling gloves must have seemed a Godsend, if indeed it was him that swiped them.
While I finished packing, Tia dug through the nearby garbage cans, talked to anyone passing by and ventured into the RV area to see if anyone saw anything. Eventually we gave up. Part of our incentive to give up was our wrong thinking that Visa would cover our stolen gear on their Theft Protection Refund. Bike shorts are not cheap, mine were around $100. The Visa Theft program requires a police report (and for your article to have been left in a secured location).
When we got to the police station, there was an odd sign on the door. We knocked and the Police Chief answered. We told him our situation and he made a police report. We joked and talked with him for a while and finally had the guts to ask about the sign on his door. “Where did you see that?” he asked looking surprised and almost embarrassed. We pointed to the open door behind him. He turned red, looked amused and removed the sign from the door. He didn’t explain the joke, but told us to steer clear of the local government officials. Apparently we had fallen into an inside joke.
As Tia and I rode, we traveled through areas she was very familiar with. One year, my sisters and I stayed in a little cottage at Rockway Beach. Back then it was windy and cold, but on that bike tour, it was clear and beautiful.
Every town we arrived in, we asked about a bike shop, seeking to replace at least our padded bike shorts. We had a lot of long, bumpy rides ahead of us, and our hinies were in need of a bit of comfort. The guide book mentioned a few different bike shops in Tillamook, so we were in a bit of a hurry to get there.
The road was windy and narrow. We often shared it with tourist traffic and the occasional logging truck. Of the two, I would generally prefer to share a road with a big rig. They are manned by professional drivers, who have some practice steering clear of the crazies out there on bicycles. Generally, tourist have what I call, vacation brain; which means that they have a mindset that nothing bad can happen because they are on vacation, so they switch off the cautionary part of their brain (which makes them really fun to be around when not behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle).
Tia was in the lead and had just come out of a very tight curve that I was in the middle of when a logging truck rolled by me, close. As I said earlier, just two feet away. I clung to my handlebars, praying that I would be able to maintain my balance. With the guardrail on the right, and my panniers much wider than I was accustomed, I was fearful that if I hit the guard rail, I would be deflected into the massive truck. One trailer full of logs passed by, with chains dangling and bark flying. With any big rig hauling two trailers, there is a vortex of wind between the two trailers that would just love to suck a cyclist to her doom. It was a terrifying moment, and then the second trailer passed spitting bark that burst apart when it hit the ground. The shoulder opened back up just past the guardrail, and Tia was pedalling safely there. I watched as the truck swerved around her, giving her ample room. She stopped, for some reason, and looked back at me. I had made my way to the end of the rail and stood sobbing. That had truly been one of the most terrifying moments of my life, but I had survived. The driver simply had not seen me.
Tillamook has claim to my heart for no other reason than their fine cheese. However, getting into town that day, we were hot, dehydrated and distressed. We chased down each address for bike shops. When we arrived at each, we discovered that, well, there were no bike shops in Tillamook. Two had closed down years previous, and the last cycle shop standing was more about motorized bikes than bicycles and the sporting goods store was entirely about hunting and fishing.
Tia was fraying at the edges. We were both overheated and frustrated. I steered us into the Fred Myer and sat us down at the Starbucks, where we recharged our phones, updated our blogs and drank cold beverages. Eventually, we went shopping and Tia bought a new pair of stretchy shorts--unpadded, but still better than the non-stretch pants she had been wearing all day.
It was still hot when we left, but felt like we needed to get back on the road. There are only so many hours suitable for cycling in the day and we still had a fair way to go.
The ride from that point on was pleasant, the hills were much gentler than the previous day and the viewpoints were amazingly beautiful with view of the ocean and Netarts Bay. It made us hungry for seafood, and we had a small feast riding in Tia’s handlebar cooler.
Netarts is a tiny town consisting of a marina and a couple tiny markets. But they had food and chocolate milk, that was all I cared about.
When we got into camp, we met a couple who were bike-packing down the coast for their honeymoon/anniversary trip. They had left their kids with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days and were finally living their dream. It seemed the whole hiker/biker camp came to greet us. The sweet couple, a few guys cycling together, and Jimmy--the aforementioned New Zealander.
Jimmy had been on the road for a month or so, working his way up from San Diego. He had great stories of his adventures and the people he had met along his journey. Jimmy had that feel of a person who had come to peace with the hardships of travel on a bicycle and was just happy to be there. Jimmy was making his way north, to cut across Oregon and Idaho, through Yellowstone and up to Glacier and Banff. His one fear was bears.
Traveling alone takes a toll on you emotionally. It gets so lonely out there and to find people who are willing to listen and interested in your story is a dream come true. Sometimes the guy at the checkout counter gets far more customer than he bargained for.
That night, Jimmy had a transfixed audience. He came over as we were fixing dinner and slurping down the most decadent little tiny oysters. We talked for a while as Tia and I prepped greens. We were both so hungry that we wrung our hands when we ate, unable to chew fast enough. Most of the time on the road, food was not offered to other cyclists--it was just too precious to let go. Jimmy brought over a beer and drank while we frantically ate. When we told Jimmy of our stolen gear, he was properly disgusted. Our camp was set up in a tiny clearing among the roots of old growth forest. Sunlight filtered through the trees and the mist from the ocean made things ethereal.
At one point, I left to go make a call home to my sweet JE. It was so good to hear his voice. He soothes my soul.
We talked until the sun was down and we were nodding and exhausted. Tia and I made our way down to the shower area, about a quarter mile away. It was dark through the trees, but when we came to a clearing near the beach, the sky opened up to reveal a sky bright with stars.
Clean and dry, we climbed into our tent and slept like the dead.
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