August 7, 2017
Day 35 Gold Beach to Harris State Park: Surviving the Fire Swamp
For those of you who do not understand this reference, let me explain and then I’ll write about today. In the movie, The Princess Bride, Wesley and Buttercup (the heroes) are being chased by Prince Humperdinck and have to go into the fire swamp. No one has ever survived living in the fire swamp, but they have no choice. As they go through, they discover the secrets to survival of each of the deadly parts. One part is the fire itself. Every so often a fire would erupt, but they discover that it makes a ticking sound before this happens and so they know to get out of the way. As we have been making our way down Highway 101, I find myself thinking of this as Jim and I learn which sounds are made by really big trucks (particularly logging trucks). When we hear them coming (and you can hear them from quite a long way back), we prepare ourselves for the wind, noise and sometimes close proximity that comes with it, thus surviving the fire swamp. I can hear my son, Colin, saying “but what about the R.O.U.S. (Rodents of Unusual Size)? Well, that would be the giant motorhomes that also come zooming up from behind. They are also tricky as they are often being driven by someone who really doesn’t have experience with big rigs and so can be even more scary than the logging trucks. We treat these with care and watch carefully in the mirror to see that they are giving us space. So far so good, thus, we are surviving the Fire Swamp.
We awoke early and went to the diner for breakfast to find that Larry, Darrel and Darrel had been replaced by normal people, so breakfast was ok – not great, but not bad. It was food and I didn’t have to cook it or clean up, so I was happy.
We managed to get on the road by 8:00, chatting with a couple of motorcyclists and two sisters who were all staying at the same motel before we left. Our first and only big climb of the day started right away and we chugged up the 712 feet to the summit of Cape Sebastian with little drama. It was a cool and foggy morning, so not much to see at the top, unfortunately. We actually passed it without realizing we had, so no summit selfie – sorry.
From here, we came down quickly and pulled off at the bottom to take in the scenery. Once again, lovely beaches and rocks provided plenty of inspiration for photos and since it was going to be a short day, Jim was able to pull off and take pictures to his heart’s content.
While stopped, we met a couple from Michigan who were travelling up the coast to BC. We had a lovely chat with them as Jim took their picture for them and they for us.
Further down the road at another pull off, we met Heidi and her family from San Lois Obispo. They had come up, as many were doing, to escape the severe heat. It is funny. We’ve been in this foggy cool area for a few days and have totally forgotten that everywhere else in the interior of the state its so very hot! Heide and her husband encouraged us to take our time when we arrive in SLO, as everyone calls it, and gave us their phone number if we wanted suggestions of places to see when we get there. How nice! As the area around Big Sur is closed due to slides, we need to detour and the current cycling route is not something we are interested in doing (5,000 foot climb inland? Nope, no thanks!), so we are planning to take the train from Salinas to SLO and possibly stay for a few days there before taking another train from there to Santa Barbara. We really want to make sure we leave ourselves enough time to ride through the Baja, so this is a possible option. We will wait and see how things go as we move down the coast.
As we rode further, we stopped at places that had been noted on our route, such as Arch Rock and Thunder Rock Cove and even though the conditions weren’t perfect, we did manage to see so much. We reminded ourselves yet again, that the plan is for us to see things and meet people, not travel great distances every day. By cycling this way, we are really enjoying the journey so much!
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We lunched at one of the lookouts and had a real feast. As it remained cool, Jim very kindly set up the stove and made us some hot coffee. We had PBandJ wraps and cookies to top of our lovely lunch. With our goodies spread out all over the picnic tables, we piqued the interest of some Stellar’s Jays who came and sat in a tree very close to us, hoping for some crumbs to fall to the ground. Poor guys, didn’t know that as a teacher, I was always telling my students not to feed the ducks at the park near my school as it is not good for them to be so habituated to humans, so nope, no food for these guys today!
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We cleaned up and headed off to go over the highest bridge on the Oregon Coast, Thomas Creek Bridge, which is 345 feet high. Unfortunately, it was so foggy you couldn’t tell where we were at all, so it wasn’t worth stopping to take any pictures. Fortunately, though, they are doing work on the bridge deck and had one lane blocked off so there was a flagger letting traffic through. We went up to him and he suggested that we go on the side that was blocked off until we came to the equipment, then join the line at the end. So, we rode across this bridge in our very own lane until right at the end, where we joined the end of the line going through for a short little ride – sweet!
A few more hills and we were finally in Brookings, where we made the turnoff into Harris Beach State Park. Rolling up to the ranger station, we paid our $10.00 and found a spot to set up the tent. As it was still pretty early in the afternoon, we had time to stash out things and head off the short 1 ½ miles into Brookings to find a Starbucks, have a nice hot latte and veg for a while.
Back at our camp spot, we cooked dinner – a scrumptious pasta with cheese sauce if I do say so myself. By this time, the sun had finally come out (6:00 in the evening!), so we decided to go for a walk down to the beach.
Before heading out, we chatted with another biker, Matteo, who is from Italy. We told him we want to cycle in Europe next year, so he gave us some suggestions of places that would be great for us to cycle in (Tuscany being at the top) and he asked us about where to go in BC as he wants to spend a month cycling there. We gave him some ideas and then put him in touch with our friend, Chris, who rode from Calgary to Vancouver last summer and who would be able to give him the best advice for his travels. We hope you have a great trip, Matteo!
Heading off with the camera to the beach, we discovered more rocks! The beaches in Oregon are littered with these amazing large rock formations – it looks as if a giant child had just thrown all his toys everywhere! We climbed up on one to take some pics, then walked along the beach, once again enjoying the feeling of sand in our toes.
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We enjoyed our last free park shower (we understand that in California the showers cost money) before hitting the sack. Tomorrow should be another shortish day with not much in the way of hills, so we will sleep in and head out a little later. Last night in the beautiful state of Oregon. Tomorrow its California!
Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 1,312 km (815 miles)
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