December 12, 2012
South Bend to Ilwaco, Washington: Thanks, Art and Mary
It tickled our fancy to stay at Chen's, because of the close link of the motel and the chinese restaurant, and dealing with the family, in both places. Chen's is also a decent chinese restaurant, in a traditional American sort of way.
We ordered two dishes last night, and both portions were huge. So with the leftovers we will keep going on Chinese food for a while. Dodie will transform the Kung Pao Chicken into a hot soup, and cold General Tso's is always good!
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With our gloves still damp from yesterday, we broke out our Plan B supply, which means dish gloves and wool liners. Gloves may seem like a straightforward topic, but of course nothing is straightforward with us. Gloves not only need to keep the hands warm and dry, but you have to be able to take them off and put them on while riding. If you can do it when your hands and/or the gloves are dry, what happens when things are damp?
Putting the gloves on and off while riding is important, because you need to do that for shooting photos from the saddle. So hey, what if certain gloves would allow using the camera without taking them off? Here are the dish gloves beng tested for just that.
It turned out that today, at least, the finer points of damp glove management were not critical, because it basically neglected to rain. One effect of that was that we could effectively see, appreciate, and photograph the scenes on our ride beside mud flats, forest, and finally Willapa Bay, on the way down to Ilwaco. With the sun sort of out, the Winter light was interesting, and the ride became very enjoyable.
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:-)
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We also learned a bit more about the local economy, passing a large oyster processing plant at Niawiakum River. We noticed that the workers here spoke Spanish. Later, we also came upon a large stockpile of oyster shells, with some being loaded into trucks. Later we saw those trucks, piled high, on the highway. So, clearly, the shell bits by the roadside do not come from our tongue in cheek roadside shucking parties, but from some serious on road oyster trucking. Duh.
Ilwaco is a small place, that boasts just one traffic light. I
t became a very special place for us, though, as Art and Mary Birkmeyer drove out from Longview to see us here. Art and Mary are long time warm showers hosts, and Art is a cyclist. Most recently he rode down this coast from San Franciso and then up the Sierra Cascade Route.
Art and Mary took us out to a restaurant, forcing us to abandon our anticipated meal of crackers. (Hey, don't knock those crackers - there are three kinds including one with a pretty spicy cheese filling!) In this little town, we did not expect much from a restaurant, but we stumbled on one down by the marina, called Pelicano.
The menu was a little surprising, with not many choices and each price about double what one would have predicted. Art and Mary, bless them, were not worried, and encouraged the tired and hungry cyclists to just go for what sounded good. It turned out it was all good. In fact, the quality could not have been better and in that light the prices were not out of line. Best of all, we could spend some hours talking cycling and admiring family photos with these true friends.
We first came to Art and Mary and stayed at their place as we began our cross country cycle in 2011. Then too we were tired and hungry, so we seem to be making a habit of it. It was CGOAB and cycling that allowed us to find each other, and we are grateful that it happened!
Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 407 km (253 miles)
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