Friday, July 01, 2005
Day 8 postscript, aka: Technology, oh how it failed them, part II
Friday afternoon and evening was pretty low key. After I drove the guys back to the hotel, they showered. I wound up finding the location of the local outdoor public pool and left them in the room for a bit. When I got to the main road, I looked to the right before making my left. There I saw the Dopelgangers, cranking up the hill to the right, going along the Oregon Coast Bike route southbound. We must have passed them at some point. I wished Keith and Ruben could have seen it.
Marc had troubles with his bike most of the trip, but both Keith and Ruben had trouble with their bike technology. Keith suspects that his bicycle computer shorted out during that long wet day when we went through Lincoln City. It reset that day and a few other times since then. Then to top it off - the last two days of riding he had tracked their average speed down the coast and it was 14.9 mph. When he walked his bike back to the OR/CA border, it was just enough, just slow enough that their average speed went down to 14.8 mph.
Ruben, on the other hand, had this great bike mounted GPS unit given to him. That's how we've been getting those sweet pictures of where they biked and the elevation maps. Well, somewhere around Langlois the GPS unit stopped collecting data. He's still uncertain as to why, but all that data was lost. He spent much of Friday night trying to see if he could recover the data, but to no avail. We tracked the trip going back from Brookings to Portland via Reedsport - so he'll be able to rebuild the profile. Still that was a dissapointment.
After my swim and shower, we all went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. No one said this was the "best Chinese food ever." It just wasn't. It was edible and no one got sick. That's always a plus.
We got to see a beautiful sunset from our room. This was the first one we had seen all trip because of the foul weather and clouds in the evening! After it got dark, Elias and I went to the beach and lit off a couple of small boxes of sparklers. He had so much fun with them. Why are they illegal in Seattle? Sigh.
Friday afternoon and evening was pretty low key. After I drove the guys back to the hotel, they showered. I wound up finding the location of the local outdoor public pool and left them in the room for a bit. When I got to the main road, I looked to the right before making my left. There I saw the Dopelgangers, cranking up the hill to the right, going along the Oregon Coast Bike route southbound. We must have passed them at some point. I wished Keith and Ruben could have seen it.
Marc had troubles with his bike most of the trip, but both Keith and Ruben had trouble with their bike technology. Keith suspects that his bicycle computer shorted out during that long wet day when we went through Lincoln City. It reset that day and a few other times since then. Then to top it off - the last two days of riding he had tracked their average speed down the coast and it was 14.9 mph. When he walked his bike back to the OR/CA border, it was just enough, just slow enough that their average speed went down to 14.8 mph.
Ruben, on the other hand, had this great bike mounted GPS unit given to him. That's how we've been getting those sweet pictures of where they biked and the elevation maps. Well, somewhere around Langlois the GPS unit stopped collecting data. He's still uncertain as to why, but all that data was lost. He spent much of Friday night trying to see if he could recover the data, but to no avail. We tracked the trip going back from Brookings to Portland via Reedsport - so he'll be able to rebuild the profile. Still that was a dissapointment.
After my swim and shower, we all went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. No one said this was the "best Chinese food ever." It just wasn't. It was edible and no one got sick. That's always a plus.
We got to see a beautiful sunset from our room. This was the first one we had seen all trip because of the foul weather and clouds in the evening! After it got dark, Elias and I went to the beach and lit off a couple of small boxes of sparklers. He had so much fun with them. Why are they illegal in Seattle? Sigh.
Day 8 - Humbug Mountain State Park to the California Border
Because of the way the camp site was situated, both tents had to be pitched on a slight incline. Not bad if you can situate yourself so that your head is slightly higher than your feet. The unfortunate thing for me was that it was also tilted to the side. To my side. Elias slipped down the hill, and at one point "reset" himself to the top of the tent. Ruben mostly stayed put. Me? I kept slipping to the bottom and the door side of the tent. It was kind of amusing in a way - especially since Elias and I had a conversation about cars, hills and friction just the day before. Ruben says I need tires to sleep.
Keith woke up first. When I dragged myself out of the corner, I found it was just before 7am. It had been so windy the night before the marine layer never made it to shore, so our tents and gear was mostly dry and the weather was already warm. We still attempted to make another fire. Even with some fire starter that the people in the neighboring camp gave us (out of pity) was STILL couldn't get the wood to burn. Hrm. We left the rest for the next unsuspecting victims.
After breakfast and showering, we broke camp and the guys left around 9:30 am. The first bit of today's journey was a long up hill - to 700 feet. There were two hills in the early morning, but again, they had a beautiful tail wind. The skies were clear. Their top speed (according to Keith's computer) was 42.5 mph. They got to Gold Beach around 11:15 and met up with Elias and me at a small Espresso/Cafe/Bookstore. We each had a small something to eat then got back on the road. I noted a sign that said there was only 25 miles to Brookings, so I expected they could make it in a bit under 2 hours.I opened my window as I was passing the guys once again (they had started out before me). Just then I hear this WAIL of a siren - the pitch rose then fell rather quickly. I asked Ruben through my open window as I passed "Ummm, I hope that wasn't a real Tsunami warning!" Seeing as it was close to noon and a fast sounding alarm, we figured it was just a test.
Along the way I stopped to watch a couple of windsurfers on the waves. It looked beautiful. Ruben took this picture of Keith crossing the highest bridge in Oregon. Oh and at some point I also passed the Dopelgangers again. They seemed to be consistently about 1 hour ahead of Keith and Ruben.Elias and I made it down to Brookings pretty quickly: around 1pm and asked to check in early. The woman at the Best Western (Beachfront Inn) was very accomodating. I unloaded the car and Elias and I were veggies for a bit.
I sent Ruben a text message where we were and to call when they hit Brookings. He did - at 2:00 exactly. I put Elias back in the car and we passed them driving to the border.
At 2:21 pm according to the clock, I saw them round the corner so I jumped out of the car and ran across the border. Notice how NICE the Oregon border sign is (and associated landscaping) and how ... well the California sign is in disrepair ...
The boys crossed the border just a minute or so later.
Ruben noticed that the first street passed the border in California is "Elias Street!" Elias loved that! :)
We played a bit at the border as Keith and Ruben cooled down. There was my sudden "shock" of leaving Elias "alone in another state" at age 5... :)Now we're back at the hotel. And no, they did not bike back.
