June 13, 2006
Nehalam Bay State Park - Cape Lookout State Park: Another tough, but scenic day.
We were up at 7:15 but didn't leave until 9:30. We were getting slower at breaking camp. Perhaps part of our delay this morning was the extended walk to the bathrooms. We had carefully packed away our food last night. No raccoons were going to get our left over sloppy joe fixings! This morning we had breakfast foods on the table when we both walked to the bathroom. We arrived back in camp to find a crow had made substantial progress on an apple. I was surprised at the deep gouges in the apple. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of a crow.
It was misting slightly as we left camp. We were optimistic on the weather.
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The traffic was heavier today and we had two extended climbs. We did not take the side trips. Jacinto said his legs were tired - that it felt like we were riding a century.
We thought we might see Don and Ann on the road today. It rained a bit off and on. We wondered if they would hotel it another night. I left my cell phone turned on all day in case they called. I tried calling them a couple of times but got only a message.
We debated shortly about staying in town as it had been another hard day and there was camping in town. But we had told Don and Ann we would be at Cape Lookout and I had heard how beautiful it was. We rode past many, many milk cow farms. I'm used to cattle having lived in farm country all my life. We have plain old red 'meat' cows instead of black and white dairy cows. In eastern Colorado there are many feed lots with the smell of money in the air. This air didn't smell like Colorado cows. Perhaps these cows are grained? At first I thought we were riding past pig farms - we have those in Colorado also. It didn't take me long to discount the pig farm idea with the picturesque dairy farms. Many of the farms had large signs at the gate proudly advertising their Tillamook Dairy Association.
We wound down, down, down to Cape Lookout. It was about 10 miles from town. Finally Jacinto said what was on both of our minds. "This will be a heck of a ride out in the morning."
The hiker biker area was huge. Acres big? It was right on the ocean for the best of views. We also had a stiff breeze. The trees were so huge and so closely set together that we had a hard time finding a place for our tent. We finally put it on a path intersection. We didn't see any other campers at all and didn't think our tent location would be a problem.
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This was indeed a lovely, lovely spot. After we set up camp we noticed a grassy area with a large pavilion not too far from our camp. We wondered if we could have set up camp on the grass. Probably that wasn't officially allowed, but the campground was so deserted that I doubted anyone would know. I told Jacinto Cape Lookout was so beautiful, it would be the perfect location for a wedding.
A little pass time of mine was checking out how far from the hiker biker sites to the bathroom. Cape Lookout won the contest for remoteness. I guess when you're paying only $4. a person, you don't get convenience. Maybe they figure we don't mind taking a 15 minute walk each way, that we haven't done enough exercise yet. Remember my 'when I'm done, I'm done' habit? Yep - I don't like hiking to the bathroom. This was fairly spooky. These trees were even larger with lots of moss. Some had fallen down. The silence was deafening. Map in hand, we went in search of water for our soup pot and a shower. We saw one other couple in the hiker/biker. We said a brief hello and confirmed the direction of the showers.
Tonight's dinner was rotisserie chicken, cut up with veggies. We added last night's left over sloppy joe meat. It turned out pretty good!Typically we wouldn't have carried meat, but the temperature was cool enough we weren't worried about spoilage. We hauled our cooking stuff to the covered pavilion and ate out of the rain. We had hot chocolate as an after dinner drink. I had two, which helped warm me up. We had hot chocolate frequently on the L & C last summer. Now I think it's a required part of bicycle camping. Jacinto had bought all of the fixings for coffee. Sugar, creamer, and instant Folger's. I whined it was going to shoot our grocery budget. But Jacinto can't get going in the morning without coffee, so there was no use whining too loud. However, he didn't like the instant Folger's. Having grown up in Mexico drinking instant Nescafe, he really thought instant was okay - but apparently not Folger's. He disliked it so much that we ended up leaving all of his coffee fixings in a tidy pile in the center table on the pavilion. Hopefully someone would use them, although they had been opened. Hard to say, people are rightfully more cautious now.
I could have sat and watched the ocean and the sunset forever. This was the most beautiful camp site of our trip. It was worth the ride down the long hill and the wind. There were a very few crazy people playing in the surf. It had to be bone chilling. I was cold with my winter gear on. Finally the cold drove me inside of the tent. When we went back to the tent, the french guy was setting up nearby. It was too cold to chat. We waved and said our hellos.
We had asked at the check in for Ann and Don. They hadn't arrived. It was possible they arrived after us, but the hiker/biker was so large they didn't find us. Or they might have hoteled it again with the rain and the distance to camp. I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth in my mind between worrying about them and telling myself that they were adults, they would be fine. No phone calls or messages from them.
It was very breezy - we kept our warm clothes on. The advantage was no mosquitoes.
Today's ride: 38 miles (61 km)
Total: 188 miles (303 km)
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Oh, BTW: welcome to CycleBlaze! Excited to see you here!
3 years ago
Thank you for the welcome and suggesting I move here. Jeff has been very welcoming.
Kelly
3 years ago