Day 5 - Sunset Bay State Park to Humbug Mountain State Park (61 miles / 285 miles)

Saturday May 15, 2010 9:37PM

When Garry and Nancy from Vancouver offered me a Canadian breakfast as I was taking down my camp site I knew the day was going to be better than the previous. The breakfast, complete with coffee and orange juice was awesome. I’ve never been a fan of eating out so it was nice to have a home made meal. They both volunteered at the Olympics and had some interesting stories.

I got a late start on the day due to breakfast and writing yesterday’s blog update. The ride started on a road called Seven Devils, which is an appropriate name considering the ups and downs. The views were great and there were fewer cars than yesterday so I was doing better.

A note about the pictures
There are so many more pictures that could be taken on this trip but due to conditions (e.g. small shoulder, bad area, or I want to keep momentum, etc.). Further, there are some vistas that are so expansive they simply cannot be captured on film.

My bike is holding up fine. I need a new shifting cable but worse comes to worse it breaks and I have to stay in low gears – nothing new. I should be able to wait until I find a bike store.

[Author’s note: as I’m writing this a raccoon has begun casing the place out. He or she is unfazed by my flashlight and advances. Update! it has left and is in a fight with some other animal. Crazy! Time to go hang up my food bag. Do raccoons bite people? Did Christine pack me something that takes care of such bites? I don’t know.]

Sunday May 16, 2010 8:52 AM

Anyhow, back to my ride. After a few more miles I hit Bandon, an upscale coastal community. It looked like a mini version of pier 39 in San Francisco with all of the restaurants pushing “the  best clam chowder and crab. I really enjoy clam chowder and crab but don’t think either them are great for riding so I moved on to Mexican food. I don’t have much faith in Mexican food in Oregon but this place was alright (I don’t remember the name). It made me chuckle when the people sitting next to me asked the waiter his name and he said, Pancho Sanchez. I knew he was joking but he had to finally fess up to when they kept yelling “Pancho, could we get some more….” His real name is Michael.

It amazes me how many gift stores there are in Oregon.

I’m told by Dave at Sunset Bay Park that years back they spaced the coast towns out 26 miles apart for the stage coaches. You can roughly see that when looking at a map. The next town down was Port Orford.

Port Orford, has for sale signs on everything except for its one police car. It is a really nice town though. As noted in my pictures they painted which way to go to see the ocean. At risk of drawing the throngs of people that read my blog to their surf I will say that they have very clean, rideable, small waves.

I found a great way to charge my stuff. In the middle of the night I walk over to the RV campground and borrow one of their outlets after everyone is asleep. So far no problems.

Cars in Curry County seem to be friendly.

Still not many California license plates. Hopefully soon.

It should be noted that this is a great campground. The hiker/biker portion has a waterfall next to it and each spot is somewhat secluded. It’s strange to me that on a Saturday night this place isn’t packed. It’s at the base of the Humbug Mountains and hugs the ocean with great views. I hope to return one day, just maybe in a huge RV with a heater.

Tonight I’m joined by a couple from Germany that started their journey in LA and are heading to Vancouver. They are very nice, as is everyone I meet at the campground.
”How did you like LA?”
”I didn’t.”
”How did you like San Francisco?”
”I didn’t”
”How did you like the Mojave Dessert?”
“I really liked it. I don’t like cities, in Germany I live in the forest."
”That explains it.”
We all laughed.

In a sense I’m racing the weather as it is supposed to rain on Monday and I would like to be as far south as I can get prior to rain. We’ll see. I have no desire to ride in the rain.

Raccoon Epilog
I hung up my only bag with food in it and then went to bed, leaving everything that I didn’t need outside of my tent. Mistake. About 1 hour later I hear my bags being terrorized so I get up put on my shoes and sure enough one looks at me and then runs. It turns out they are so used to finding food that they try to open every bag they find. So I put all my bags in my tent and go back to bed. I wake up around 1AM and take a look around and see that they maliciously went after my bike and knocked it down (most likely for revenge). It was at this point that I also noticed that the dew was so thick everything was wet; the towel I left out to dry, my steel forks on the bike, my leather seat, everything. I put a spare tarp over my bike that I have been debating weather or not to ditch and went back to bed. Not much I could do at that point.

Michael got  hit worse. They tore up one of his books and, he suspects after doing inventory, ran off with one of his socks. A mad, mad world.

Cities I passed through:
Bandon (pop.2,833)
Langlois (pop. 50)
Sixes (pop. unknown)
Port Orford (pop. 1,153)

Dr. Christine had the correct answer with Umpqua lighthouse.

Today’s trivia:
What is the hardest part of learning how to ride a bike?

On a side note, I’m not getting everyone’s text messaged. I believe T-Mobile gives up after it can’t find me for some amount of time.

Also, I can’t say enough how nice it is to get emails, messages, comments, text messages, etc. I don’t respond because of reception issues, battery usage, exhaustion, and because I’m sometimes on the side of the road and it just doesn’t work. But, it is very noted and very appreciated.

sellers