Route Notes: Out of Tillamook

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Follow the 131 out of Tillamook (In the city it is Third Street, turn right onto it if you are heading south on hwy 101.) "Cycling the Pacific Coast" wants you to take the long way around, but unless you really want to see the lighthouses, stay on 131 until you get to Whiskey Creek Road. Follow Whiskey Creek Road to Netarts Bay Rd. This puts you back on the book route.

Upsides: shorter, very scenic.
Downsides: potentially more climbing (all very easy grades), no lighthouses.


(Robert)

Crossing Paths

View from the beach at Nehalem Bay. We rode over the cliff earlier in the day.

7-10 was bright and clear, but due to a laundry stop (Steve took care of this for all of us) we didn't break camp until about 2pm. Ride was good, fast for about the first 15 miles, then hilly with a tunnel. The tunnel was far less scary than the Astoria Bridge. At the Nehalem Bay campsite we met two women walking the Oregon coast. Their trip is also expected to take about 30 days, and they left 8 days ago from Portland. Eden and Kendra were really welcome company after 14 days on the road with the same 6-8 guys. Eden does biochem, which is right up John and Daniels' alley. I didn't catch Kendra's interests, but she broke out some marshmallows which was nice.

Sadly, we won't be seeing them again, as we cover about three times the distance per day that they can, and they aren't hiking along the freeway. They did leave a charming note, so we'll have to get in contact after our respective tours are over to see how each fared.

Today, 7-11, we're looking to hit Tillamook and visit the cheese factory there. Should be excting, I've been there before, but I hope that it lives up to the memories and the hype I've been telling the rest of the dudes.

Another interesting note: Dried sweat will bleach out bamboo shirts (and wool jerseys) fairly quickly. Rinse them nightly to prevent this.
(Robert)

Tacos La Provindia

$4.50 for a burrito, 1-2 miles south of Tillamook Cheese Factory on Highway 101.

The group rated this roach coach higher than the last, citing the $.50 cheaper burritos and the the side salad as pluses. The rice and beans were better, but my asada was a little overcooked. The side salad is chopped lettuce and tomato without dressing, leading me to believe that it is actually intended to be added to your burritos as you see fit. Either way, it was a reasonable burrito at a good price.

The tacos however were the hit of the day with multiple people returning to order more. Almost every meat available was ordered, and satisfaction was expressed by all. The onions were sauteed in some delicious mixture of oil and pure flavor, and are almost worth ordering on their own. The locals also recommended this stand highly, "... The best restaurant in town!"

(Robert)

Tour Delirium

After riding all day, eating dinner, and perhaps drinking a little, you may suddenly find everything absolutely hilarious. Likewise, lounging about in a park, eating cold cuts you may be struck by a case of the giggles. This is nothing to be alarmed by, it is simply a common side effect of touring known as "Tour Delirium." The combination of good food with vigorous exercise leads to this condition, and experts generally agree that it is not life threatening, or (unfortunately) a permanent condition.

Further research has shown that this effect is generally achieved with a group of 6 or fewer, but more than two.

(Robert)

Astoria

Breakfast of Champions

Ate a huge breakfast at "Dock by the Bay" in Bay Center, Washington. It was an excellent, and oyster heavy meal, with portions large enough to keep us going for the rest of the day. I got the "Docks Hangtown" which was a 3-oyster omelet, hash browns, toast, with two strips of bacon on top for good measure. The oysters came out of the adjacent bay, and were very fresh, and the toast was warm and buttery. Really one of the best breakfasts I've had so far.

You may be put off by the $2 cost of the pancakes, but the cost is entirely proportional to the size- these pancakes are a full inch thick in the middle, and roughly 12" in diameter. You could easily make a meal out of one of them, two if you are particularly voracious.

We didn't have to eat for another six hours, which is astonishing. Normally we snack frequently and have a meal every for 3-4 hours of riding.

For dinner we found a taco truck in the parking lot of the Texaco across from the Astoria Maritime Museum. (An excellent museum, we didn't stop in this time but I've been there before.) It was recommended to us by a local as being good and cheap. When we arrived it had all the earmarks of a good taco truck: authentic spelling and a family manning it.

The carne asada burrito was ok, having good meat but being heavy on onions and light on everything else. However, for being within spitting distance of Washington and for $5, it was a really good burrito. So if you are ever 13 days out of CA on a bike tour, and need a burrito, look for the taco truck on 17th and Marine.

(Robert)

Robert's Journal, Canada Day

Morning Day 6, Canada Day 7/01/09
Ended up about 20 miles short due to missing the ferry yesterday. One left at noon, and the other at 5:00. Ferry times are important when they fall in the middle of a 70 mile ride. Likewise, waking up and packing in an efficient manner are also important. Fortunately, the last 27 miles we covered were some nice low rolling hills, so we were able to keep a good pace somewhere in the range of 15mph. That was good riding, just bombing down 19. We are finally heading south, our most northerly point being Comox.

Notes: The huge supermarket we went to in Nanaimo was serving cake for Canada Day. There were also a lot of Canadian flags and whatnot about, as one would expect. They seemed to go in more for gatherings in parks than parades though, as we didn’t run into any. At the same time, we were riding later in the day, starting out around noon. Also, we found out, “Going to Nanaimo, eh?” is the best thing to say in a Canadian accent. It became a catch phrase of the group for the next several hundred miles.

(Robert)

Robert's Journal, First Ferry, Day 4

Morning Day 4: 6/29/09
Woke up yesterday bright and early, broke camp as Amtrack employees started parking in the alleyway, and went back into the station. The train left at 7:40 am, so we arrived in Canada, unboxed the bikes and got through customs by about noon. While getting everything sorted out in front of the station we were approached by a young lady on a bike:
“Hey! You guys want to buy a bike? $30!”
“Uh, no, we can’t carry a bike.”
“Ok, fine, $20.”
“Sorry, we still can’t carry it.”
She then moved down 20 feet to ask some other people in our group the same thing, with the same response. Why you’d try to sell a bike to people who are already riding bikes is beyond me.

We rode out of the station to find some food in Vancouver, since we hadn’t had anything real to eat on the train. We immediately ran into some roadies, who were super cool and gave us directions to a pub as well as an area of downtown with a market and some eateries. Our food supplies needed to be restocked at least a little before the ride, so we found the market, and got some Canadian cash from an ATM. Next to the market there was a great little falafel place, reasonably priced. We all got the shwarma, which was excellent, and after we were done the manager offered to refill our water bottles. By asking directions and a bit of dumb luck, we found the bike path that runs along Vancouver’s waterfront. It was an incredibly beautiful day, and there were bikers of all descriptions out (and people other than bikers as well). It was really cool how many people were out, a fact only improved by a good percentage of them being attractive
women.

We had a few wrong turns in the city, but at length we found Lion’s Gate bridge, a huge suspension bridge. It’s a pretty cool bridge, and was very rideable, as it had a ped/bike sidewalk separated from the road. From there we took Marine Road, a nice rolling ride to the ferry.

While waiting for the ferry we met Peter, a fellow cyclist and a resident of the island that we were going to. We chatted with him about touring, riding in Canada, and the site that we were planning at staying at that night. He was super stoked on the idea of our tour, and since he lived near our campsite, he offered to ride us to the supermarket, and then give us directions from there. So, we stopped following the coast and took a pretty cool route over the center of the island to the market and the campsite. Peter was super awesome, and sent a picture of all of us on the ferry to our folks.

We got to the campsite around 7 or 8 and had dinner cooked and camp set up by the time it got dark. (Which, due to the latitude, was incredibly late, around 10 pm.)

The park attendant was cool enough to take USD rather than Canadian, and was even so nice as to give us the going conversion. People in Canada are apparently super nice.

(Robert)

Robert's Journal, Second Day

Second day on the road (written in the early morning of the 28th), and the first that I’ve felt up to keeping a log, an inauspicious start. Yesterday we left Santa Cruz at 1pm, biked over the Santa Cruz mountains, and into San Jose, arriving at 6pm. The last 10 miles were in Los Gatos and San Jose, and were really flat. The first 30 miles took us up 3500 feet, and was pretty brutal, as it’s just continuous climbing to the summit. It is the largest single day climb on the entire tour.

At the moment we are in Seattle, enjoying the comforts of the alleyway beside the Amtrack station. Those of us with hammocks, including myself, are certainly having the best of it, but the tent crew is doing ok. Hopefully we won’t be routed from the station as we were from the Quest Field parking lot. Speaking of landmarks, from my perch on an overturned luggage cart I can also see Amazon’s headquarters, and the cranes at the docks. At the very least we’re getting the most ardurus parts of this trip done with at the beginning (or so we hope).

We will be catching the 7am train to Vancouver in the morning, and taking some number of ferrys. As with everything that has happened thus far on this trip I have very little idea of WTF is going on. I’d be more O.K. with this if it was apparent that someone else knew what was happening. Our MO thus far has been simply to grab our gear and tickets and go.

Which is perhaps why we are sleeping in an alley.

(Robert)