Day 79, August 5th 2008, beginning in Cape Lookout State Park, Oregon

We woke up late, which we are finding happens more and more in the cloudier, darker, colder mornings. We packed up and left the Cape Lookout campground heading south. We ascended a pretty good hill right out of the campground, man this coast is much hillier than the east coast, or at least the part I'm familiar with.

The weather was yucky again, and with the large climb, we decided to stop at a grocer only 15 miles into the ride in Pacific City.  The view was amazing , it was just too bad the sun was nowhere to be found.  We hung around too long at this place, but they had some outlets where we could charge stuff so it was okay. We saw some of the guys we camped right near stroll in as well so we talked to them for two shakes of a Persian kitten's whiskers. They arrived after us and left before us. It was 2:00 by the time we got back on the road and we had only gone 15 miles… Yikes!

Once we got back on we logged about 25 miles before our next stop at a fairly decent sized town called Lincoln. We went to a Safeway (grocer) in Lincoln where we met another couple of bikers heading down the coast to San Francisco, just like the other two Sean and Mike we had just met. Could no one man up all the way to San Diego? Jeez. They had actually run into Sean and Mike earlier, who were easily recognized by their massive beards. They watched our stuff out front , while we ran in and grabbed some food. Inside, I finalized plans with a former coworker Mark, to meet us out at the end of our trip in the Grand Canyon. He booked his flight that day; it was official. I was excited, but it is still a long way with a lot more riding to do before then.

When we stepped outside someone noticed us and stopped by to ask about our trip. Or maybe it was to brag about the one he went on. He claimed to have done Beaverton, Oregon, which is right near Portland, to Washington D.C. In 23 days. To this day I'm not positive, but I believe he said he was self supported, and that they did on average 135 mile days. And I thought we were fast. After he left, an interesting, precocious, young fellow, akin to Macaulay Culkin's (spelling's got to be off) character in Home Alone, began chatting our ears off as he was waiting for the bus. He had all sorts of things to ask us and tell us. It was fairly entertaining, although I can't remember any specific things that he said. The people you meet…

We left Lincoln after another nice long stop heading towards Newport which was about 20 miles away. Paul hadn't eaten much at our previous stop, and was nearing exhaustion after the continuous climbing and falling we had found the coast to be, contrary to what we had expected. He had fallen well behind, and needed the power of senior nutri grain to give him the strength to make it to Newport. As we passed a place called Depoe bay, we saw Sean and Mike's bikes again; Aha! We had passed them after they had left us earlier that morning.

As we approached Newport, the very beginning of town had a buffet. Count it. We got in and got into the action quick like. There was a pizza bar, as well as every other food you would expect at a buffet. Their dessert and fruit bars were really good too. I ate more than any human should eat in one sitting, which was probably about equivalent to what everyone else in the restaurant had who likely didn't get any exercise that day. You Americans make me sick. We again hung around watching more Will Ferrell. It was a lazy day, and I was living up to my "let's take it slow down the coast" mentality. We eventually rolled ourselves out of the restaurant somehow managing to fit through the doors with 6 miles left on our day to a campground. We got there early enough where we actually had to pay to sleep. How disappointing… it had been a while on the road. When we were talking to the person at the front, we discovered that "the bearded" guys had come in before us. Ha, we couldn't lose these guys.

We made our way into the hiker/biker section and set up shop. Sure enough Sean and Mike were there, and they were hanging out with these two other cyclists Arthur and Drew. Arthur and drew came from Beaverton and were heading down the coast to wherever life took them. Interesting guys, and oddly enough, they both smoked. They had a fire, so once we were ready, we all huddled around it exchanging stories. We found out that Mike and Sean are both from California, Mike Santa Cruz, and Sean from the L.A. Area, and had started their trip in Victoria B.C.

Sean had us rolling for a while as he told us one story about how he had passed out some cyclists who had passed Mike and him earlier that day and the wisecrack he came up with as they passed was "rabbit and the hare". He mentioned how he annunciated it really well and said it twice. When the passees eventually caught back up, Mike had informed Sean that he what he meant to say was "tortoise and the hare" referring to the "slow and steady wins the race" children's allegory. Apparently they had a good laugh after that.

Sean also told us a few other stories that were entertaining, but too long for bloggage. Eventually the fire died down, and we all got tired. Mike and Sean were committed to doing their first century (100 mile day) of their tour to make up for the short ride that day.

Despite the crappy weather, we were in good spirits to meet up with some people sharing the same battle down the hilly coast of Oregon. Hopefully the weather would clear, but rain or shine, nothing could mask the rugged beauty of the Oregon coast.

Life was good.