Bike the OR Coast

Day 2 - Astoria to Nahelem Bay State Park






The Best Western in Astoria was terrific. Breakfast was great. They had a waffle maker for making your own malted belgian waffle. Mmmm. Our view was ok. Yes, we can see the water, but over a little industrial dock area. It was a water view though. And if you look to the left you don't see the industrial stuff.




Elias and I went swimming in the pool for 45 minutes. It was warm and they also had a hot tub and jacuzzi. MMMMM. Then Ruben and Elias had a small snooze while we all got set to go.
















Finally around 10? 11? something like that, the boys got on the road. I passed them shortly after they left, just before they crossed the Youngs Bay Bridge, and shot these pictures. Unfortunately my camera didn't snap when I took one of Marc...















The first bit of bike trouble happened less than 5 miles into the trip when Keith's tire blew. Marc was out in front happily spinning his feet and didn't know what had happened. Keith and Ruben patched the tire and were back on their way. They all caught up with each other after a bit and made it to Cannon Beach for lunch.

Meanwhile, Hilary and I made our way to outlet mall in Seaside, where I found some window chalk and decorated the car to surprise the guys. They were quite surprised. I started by putting "Bike the Coast, 10 year reunion" on the back. Then on the passenger side of the car it says "Pastry Powered T^uring Machines" (with an 'o' above the ^. Computer science geeks will get the reference to the Turing Machine... it was the name of our STP group 10 years prior, when we trained heavily by using a book called "Bakeries by Bicycle") On the driver's side I wrote our "byline" - "We live to eat, we bike to eat more."










We ate lunch at a place called the Wayfarer, by the Surfsand Inn. The view was incredible. Afterwards, Hilary, Elias and I went on the beach. Elias had a blast and got his pants wet even though I asked him not to (as always). I tried to fly my stunt kite, but found Elias wasn't strong enough to help me get it airborne. Then one of the cross tubes snapped, so I had to go back into town for a replacement.

They boys, meanwhile, biked towards Manzanita and Nahelem bay. There were two big 500 ft elevation gain hills... on that stretch. Worse yet they were back to back. They just got off one hill and had to climb another! They were very proud when they reached the top!

Our camp site was D29 - carefully picked on line to be close to the beach, close (but not TOO close) to the bathrooms, and close to the section that had the play area for Elias. We had electricity, a water faucet, fire pit, picnic table... the only negative was that the "water dumping station" was right in our site. People had to dump their "wash water" in this cone like thing right near our table. They were all pretty apologetic about it.

Hilary came and picked Marc up around 5:30. They slept in a hotel back in Manzanita. He left his bike with the intention of coming back the next morning to start from the camp (hmmm, foreshadowing again?)

Keith, Ruben, Elias and I had "The best sandwhiches ever!" of cold cuts, hard boiled eggs, and whatever else we could find in the cooler and the bag of groceries I had brought. We were just too tired to go anyplace to get some food, plus we were still getting all settled in.

After dinner we hiked the beautiful dunes and attempted to fly the stunt kite again. Ruben's famous last words to me were "are you sure there's not too much wind?" I told him it should be fine. The kite went up! The swivel clip bent OUT! and I fell back on my ass. The kite and the line were fine. It was just the swivel clip that didn't hold :)

After dinner we put a fire in the fireplace and roasted marshmellows for smores. MMMMM. Then we all sacked out.

We were very lucky on this day - it was supposed to rain, but we really had none. Even at night, it did sprinkle, but it never rained hard. By the time we woke up most of our gear was dry... on to day 3...