Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Summer's Over!

Now that the summer is over and I am more or less settled in CO I have to post the remaining pictures from the ride.

But first here is the rest of the trip (in words) from Portland. We (Claire, Calum, & Trevor) left Portland after a couple days rest and headed for Lincoln City on the coast. But before we got there we ran into some incredibly yummy black berries, I got a ticket for running a stop sign on my bike, and we spent the night in McMinnville with a very nice family. The next day we made it to Lincoln City where I enjoyed the best peach ever. The following days were awesome riding down the Pacific Coast Highway. We took some short days and spent a night with Nathan and Michelle (remember them?) just north of Newport.

Several more days passed taking it easy, running into other cyclist along the way, and enjoying the seascapes. Particularly of note was the appropriately named Sunset Bay. Also, we happened to run into a hoard of what I'll call luxury cyclist between Sunset Bay and Bandon. The were several hundred cyclist riding really nice bikes and having all of their gear motored for them. They had all you could drink beer, warm showers on a truck, and massages in Bandon...what a life.

So on down the road we went. The last night I spent with them was on the beach just south of Golden Beach, OR. I still had 280 miles left to go in 3 days to get to Ft. Bragg so I knew I had to push it.

The first day I made it 90 miles across the CA/OR border and through the Redwood forests to the Elk Prarie campground. The next day I made it another 115 miles with a lovely last leg for the day along the Avenue of the Giants. The only crappy thing was that my rear wheel hub started to seize up on me so I really had to work to get anywhere. I was far enough out of town (Redway) that I need to to hitch-hike, so I did. I spent a good part of the night disassembling and overhauling my hub in the dark of an RV campground. The next morning I got a ride a few miles to the next town that had a small bike shop where the owner and I tried for several hours to fix the hub, but no success. I still had 75 miles and half a day to get to Ft. Bragg, so I rode down Hwy-101 some more hoping that the wheel would start behaving, but no success again. My only option really was to thumb it, so I did and I was pick up in short time.

In Ft. Bragg Alice and I visited the local Botanic Gardens where the Daliahs were in full bloom. We also spent a couple nights in the Bay area at the Exploratorium.

Anyway on to the pictures...

Ride Across North America