December 26, 2012
Gold Beach to Brookings, Oregon
There was no question of gambling today with anything less than our fullest waterproof outfits. The drenching cold rain continued all the way to Brookings. By clenching and unclenching first one hand twenty-five times and then the other, I managed to keep them both working.
Brookings was not far, under 50 km, but Crescent City would have been 50 km more, too far in the rain.
This unfortunate spacing of towns is keeping us from making any stunning progress, but somehow the odometer for this trip did click over 1000 km today. The photo shows not only the 1000 km on the bike computer, but the very wet cockpit of my bike. I think a cab over the thing would be a good idea!
When we arrived at the motel, the owner asked us to stand on a mat, since we were dripping gallons of water. An actual river of black water flowed from Dodie's bike outside the office but on the man's clean walkway. If it were not a bike, I would have worried about an oil leak. Old sheets then helped protect the floors in our room, until we had sufficiently dripped dry.
Although the motel owner had good cause to worry about what such apparitions from the road might do to his motel, we soon had our own concerns about what the motel could do to us. This came in the form of a bed bug exterminator truck that pulled up to an adjacent unit. This trip has had us staying in what for us is an inordinate number of motels, making bedbugs a concern.
We went to speak to the man in the truck and were relieved to find that he not only is just staying at the motel, but could assure us it is bug free.
The short hops between towns have the advantage of giving us some daylight time at each destination. Brookings seems to be mostly a strip along 101, but it had some fun stuff for us. Fred Meyers, for instance, which is a bright indoor place to prowl around in. We had fun with activities like picking up various tablets (except the iPads, which were nailed down) and saying oh, ours is lighter, or slimmer, or a better size.
We also spotted our first U-Haul outfit since being pinned down by storms further up the coast. Dodie had had the good idea that a rented van could handily take us to San Diego, without having to figure out a lot of bus and train connections. However, since this exit route got proposed the weather has given us a bit of a break (just a little bit) and we have resolved not to be driven off by just a hurricane or gale here and there! So we just strolled by what could have been out escape van. Still took its picture, though.
Riding in the rain is taking a bit of a toll on the bikes. All our brake pads are looking worn, and Dodie's rear brake had become sticky or hard to apply. So we took advantage of our daylight time in town to buy up a lot of brake pads, some cables and cores, and a wire cutter. It will take a little while to install this stuff, but at least I totally redid Dodie's back brake system. The photo shows me with some WD-40 that I used to help the cores run smoothly in the cables. I am holding it up in hopes of triggering some controversy about using WD-40 for this (or anything else)!
Our big Christmas ambitions were Christmas Dinner, Skyping with the kids, eating fruitcake, and going to see the Hobbitt. With the help of good wifi at this motel, we ticked off the Skype. We broke out and devoured Lisa's fruitcake. That was easy! And a small theatre in town just showed us The Hobbitt. So now we are 100% happy about Christmas!
Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,018 km (632 miles)
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