July 30, 2021
Day 79 - Independence, OR to Neskowin, OR
Break for the coast
Today was expected to be another scorcher with a forecast of 100*, so we had to get going early and get to the coast. Our hosts were awake and made us coffee while we had oatmeal for breakfast. We were trying to get going, but they kinda held us hostage for a while. I think because they were teachers they were used to long lectures. I dropped alot of hints about packing and leaving, but they went unanswered. They even remarked about how we left so late yesterday since it would be so hot. It was after 9 when we finally left and it was already pretty hot. We had about 3, 800' climbs to do and the first one was pretty sweaty. Hwy 22 was full of crap on the shoulder and huge cracks, so it was alot of work to dodge all that. A couple of times we got off the main road to take a frontage road which was a nice relief from the traffic. As we started on the second hill, the forest got more vibrant and the air cooled down a little. We came down onto an unknown small town and Mark ran over a 4" nail. Since he is running tubeless, he removed it and tried to patch it with stans darts. The first couple didn't work, but finally the 3rd one did. I wanted a picture of the nail but mark threw it at the nearest building and we rode off.
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We went down to the old hwy near a river and climbed a huge hill. The forest became steadily more lush as we climbed and cold air was blowing hard.
I was actually chilly and it was close to 60* out. The road was half unpaved and only a few cars passed. The downhill portion was not very steep and very windy, so I was tired at the bottom. Luckily we only had 1 mile left to get to neskowin. I was half expecting to see the ocean right away, but since the coast is so hilly, we jad to go down a path a ways. Even the public beach was far from the ocean, so we decided to just go to our destination. Our home for the night is a Nancy's house. She is listed on the ACA maps and you can camp on her oceanfront lawn for $15. We arrived and went right to the beach and just jumped in. It was really cold, but it only hurt my legs, most likely because they are tired from working so hard. We went back up to Nancy's house and took turns showering. Nancy let us use her kitchen to cook pizza (mark and Alex boight a nice premade pizza from the general store, but we didn't have such luck) and a curry dish (which Mary skillfully made with mostly ingredients we already had). Nancy was interesting though. She also hosted people in rooms via Airbnb. One of the rooms was rented by an artist lady and we were all eating in the kitchen we she got back from the artist retreat. Nancy offered to kick us out if it pleased the artist lady and I thought that was kinda rude. I was getting alot of fake nice vibes from Nancy though and was really guarded after that. Other than that everything was great. The ocean view was stunning and we even walked over to the sea mountain and hiked to the top.
Once we got down, it was almost dark and we went back, took care of some night time hygiene and went straight to bed with sounds of the ocean in the background.
Mileage:62
Altitude gain:2600
Today's ride: 62 miles (100 km)
Total: 4,139 miles (6,661 km)
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