Bike the OR Coast

Day 1 - Driving 6.5 hours from Seattle to Astoria (usually a 4 hour drive) by way of Portland Airport.





It's 12:30am, Saturday actually. After packing, cleaning, and getting ready all day (actually days), we got on the road at 5pm.

What a waste of time.

It took us 2.5 hours to get from Seattle to Centralia - normally a 1.25 hour drive. Marc and Hilary (driving separately with baby Joseph) have us beat. From their home in NW Seattle to Ft. Lewis (just south of Tacoma, normally a 40 minute drive) took them 2.5 hours.

Fortunately once we got passed the Centrailia area, it was a really quick ride. We veered off I-5 and took I-205 to the airport. I tried to get a good picture of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams, glowing in the sunset, but my camera ran out of batteries, so all I got was this blurry shot of Mt. St Helens from the south. After seeing the traffic (due to construction) northbound on 205, he said "Note to self: take I-5 home next week." I told him likely the construction will be done by then... This, by the way, is foreshadowing. In case you're missing it as it thwacks you over the head.

I did get a good picture of the sunset over the Columbia river once I changed my battery. Minutes later I took a picture of the OR/WA border.








Keith, who was to arrive at 7pm, was delayed as well. We arrived at the airport around 9pm and pulled into the drive. I called Keith and he said he had just put his bike back together and was on his way out. After unlatching the bike rack and pulling open the trunk, we were approached by airport security guard, who gave us a hard time that we weren't actively loading. I told her I just spoke with him and he was on his way out and she threatened to write us a ticket if we didn't relatch everything and drive around the drive. So I relatched everything, told Ruben to drive and started walking into baggage claim.

Just then the security guard says "Ummm, Maam? Here he is" (he came out the door behind me). So I unlatched the bike trailer AGAIN and we loaded him up and got on our way.

Now you have to know I planned just about everything. I have hotels, maps, you name it all for the coast of Oregon - days planned out. What I forgot to map was "how to get from Portland's airport to Astoria." I looked at the AAA map of Oregon and guess that we should go out route 26 to around Seaside and then travel north. However, because of construction, we can't get out of the airport and onto 205 south to get to 26. Ruben's asking what to do. I'm the navigator...

Here's where technology fails to come in handy.

- A friend of Ruben's loaned him a GPS unit that apparently can hook to his bike. Even though I've used other navigation systems, I can NOT (even with the user's manual) figure out how to get the unit to give me the best DIRECTIONS to Astoria. It can give me the LAT/LONG of the Portland airport OR the center of Astoria, but nothing says "Take 26," or "Take 30." So I give up on that.

- Next I have this GREAT phone - the Treo 650 with Cingular. I call my friends who live in Portland. His phone is off. So I don't leave a message. I try his house. The answering machine picks up. I leave a message, but it's not very useful.

- I also pay for the internet on said phone. I figured I could use the web and find the directions to Astoria. Well I do, the simplified mapquest apparently doesn't know "Portland Airport" as the starting location. So I use just Portland, which uses the center of town - something like 15 miles to the west. It says to take route 26, but that it's 90 miles and will take us over 2 hours.

- So I pull out my Mac with a Bluetooth dongle. I try to connect the laptop to the internet through my phone then Ruben's blackberry. NEITHER DEVICE HAS THAT ENABLED. ARGGGGHHHHH!!!

- Meanwhile Keith is calling his wife in California and asking her to find the best route. She queries one site and finds the best way is to backtrack up to Kelso (1/2 hour to the north), then cut over on 30. Sounds reasonable. She double checks on Mapquest and it tells her... to take 26.

By this time we had already FINALLY gotten through all of the trafficy mess and gotten on 205 northbound. We were not turning around and going to 26. We cross the Columbia river again back into Washington. You would think it would all be smooth sailing from there, right?

Remember the foreshadowing?

You got it. We hit the construction traffic going northbound on 205.

Once passed that we had a very quick drive. At Kelso we took 432 to route 4, across the same bridge (in Kelso) that Keith, Ruben, Marc and I traveled 10 years ago for the Seattle to Portland ride. We saw one lone biker, walking his bike up the side of the road.

We arrived at the Best Western Lincoln Inn at 11:30pm. The woman working the front desk was incredibly nice and offered to keep an eye out on our car (with the bikes still locked to each other on the trailer). The place has free internet (WOOT!), a hot tub and pool open all night, continental breakfast from 6-10 am AND a work out room. Supposedly we have a water view, but we can't quite tell that tonight.

Elias is now asleep in one bed. Ruben and I are geeking out briefly before we go to sleep ourselves. Tomorrow the decisions will be: what time to get up, whether to drive the guys across the river so they can technically start in Washington and REALLY go border to border, where to have lunch and whether we still feel like camping at Nahelem bay if it's rainy tomorrow night.