June 17, 2006
South Beach State Park - Honeyman State Park, OR (near Florence): No rain and a tailwind? Yes!
We were up at 5:45 AM to a dry tent. Could that be possible? We took it down in a hurry before it started raining. We learned our lesson from the night at Ft. Steven's when we were up and fixing breakfast. THEN it started to rain and we had to take down a wet tent. Live and learn.
We were on the road by 7 AM. There was no wind and the gray skies soon cleared to ???? sun???? Yes!
We hardly dared stop in Yachats for a second breakfast for fear the wind would start.I did not write down the restaurant name. But if I"m even back in Yachats - I'm having breakfast there again. It actually seemed to be a bar, with the heavy oak bar, big mirror, and lots of booze bottles. The booths in the dining area were also heavy wood pew benches. Very old fashioned feeling. Nice. I had the veggie and potato platter. Yummm! Jacinto and I also split an order of french toast. Fresh orange juice, soccer on the TV. What more could a couple of cyclists ask for?
I stopped in at the hardware store next door looking for a canister of gas for our second stove. Luckily we had our Colman stove along. We had brought two stoves in order to prepare deluxe camp meals. A friend had given me the cannister stove. I didn't realize it would be such a problem to find replacements. I petted the store cat while I chatted with the clerk. He said we most likely wouldn't find cannisters until we hit a big town. I avoid big towns/cities like the plague when cycling. It might be awhile until we use that stove again.
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The tailwind (???) started at Otter Rock. Jacinto's sharp eyes spied some otters out in the surf. We did not pay the entrance fee to the observatory. Traffic was pretty heavy in this area. I was happy we had our small shoulder on the south bound side. We waved at a fellow pedaling north bound. He was on the rock wall side with no extra space at all. Hopefully the drivers are used to so many cyclists on this route and are cautious.
We spoke with a couple of college kids doing a seat of their pants tour. They rode some old lugged bikes. I enjoyed checking out the nice lugs and the old style head tube badges.One four speed and the other a ten speed. Jacinto and I agreed it was a good thing they had young legs to be climbing all of these hills with so few gears. The four speed fellow complained that his buddy beat him on the downhill every time with 'all' of those gears. He said he didn't have trouble on the uphills. Very minimal gear. They were hoping to pick berries along the roadside, but it was a bit early yet. They were fairly disdainful of my Cliff Bar. I gained back some ground when I proceeded to pull out PB & J fixings.
We had a fast fun ride to town. There was one tunnel which led to a couple of bridges.
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We found a Fred Meyer's and spent $40. (!!!) on a roastissere chicken, veggies, and other supplies. I found throughout this trip that the hungrier I was when we got to the store, the more I bought. That was occasionally a real problem if camp was a distance.
Jacinto hit on the idea to buy roastissere chicken instead of raw chicken breasts. It was precooked and cheaper. We saved money on fuel also. Cooking time was shorter. Of course, right after he pointed all of these facts out, we quit running into stores big enough to have deli's cooking chickens . . . . such is life!
I was very happy to buy milk at the store. Jacinto debated on buying a pop and then decided to take a chance on getting one at camp. The road down to Honeyman State Park was winding. There was an intersection pointing one way to the store, the other way to camp. No distances listed. We pedaled and pedaled down the road to the camp. As we entered the camp area I saw a sign pointing UP a steep hill to the hiker/biker. Were they serious? There was no way I would be able to get my rig up that steep path. Luckily for us the ranger on duty took pity and assigned us space #2 and charged the hiker/biker rate. She was very careful to point out she was only able to do this because they weren't full.
The trees were very, very tall and the campground shaded. We had water right next to our site and the bathrooms were fairly close. I settled in to do some journaling and Jacinto made the long, long trek back to the store looking for his soda. He was gone until almost dark. Of course by the time he arrived, the store had closed. But he listened to the game on his walk - so he was happy.
I talked for awhile with a mother/adult son couple who were taking a car tour of the west. They were driving an economy car and had their gas mileage down so exact that they were convinced buying extra food and a bigger tent weighed so much that their gas mileage had decreased. The mom was most impressed with our camp chairs and BOB trailers.
I was happy with the good weather. Our clothes were actually drying on the line!
We had some little chipmunk guys hanging around, but they weren't too aggressive.
This was a very nice, easier day. We did have some climbing, but it was great to finally have a tailwind AND sunshine.
Today's ride: 51 miles (82 km)
Total: 319 miles (513 km)
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