5-20-08

Today we are writing from the Lincoln City, OR public library- one of the more populated towns we've seen in a few days. (This is Zo, in place of Mark). Since Astoria, I have endured and healed a full body reaction of hives with a week's worth of steroids, and Mark is coping with one useful eye as the other was injured in a run-in with the bob trailer bunjee cord. It's been eventful but the riding continues as we cover important miles.

The riding along the Oregon coast has been mainly on highway 101 which has more traffic but follows the shoreline beautifully. We really have seen some amazing views. After the Astoria update on Saturday we rode on to Seaside, OR and stayed in Venice RV park overlooking the Highway and a small river. Sunday, we rode through Cannon Beach and Hugpoint State Park where many of the pictures posted were taken. It was a foggy, misty day but the ocean looked beautiful. Sunday night we stayed in Bay City, OR which is clearly a town on it's way out. Soon- to-be-Ghost. The camping options were the city skate park where kids played late into the night and where we both had trouble finding a place to use the bathroom- very odd. But free. Yesterday, Monday was a challenging day, especially for me. We spent most of the day climbing and conquered some of Oregon's biggest climbs, which is a relief. We made our start at the Tillamook cheese factory after a free tour and a very cheap, very filling, farm fresh breakfast. On our first climb of the day we were passed by a San Diego riding club who were on their spring trip in Oregon. They hire cars to follow them and drive their stuff so they are able to ride 100 plus miles a day around Oregon. Quite the life, I'm sure. After hauling our loads up and down the climb we descended into Pacific City Pub and Brewery where we grabbed a beer before hitting the road again. We met the members of the club and chatted for a while- very nice men. We rode on yesterday and ended the day in Otis, OR after another long climb, a beautiful scenic loop, and 53 miles. The Otis Fire Dept. put us up for the night which meant, yet again, another free stay. As Mark said to me last night as we were cooking dinner between two horse pastures and the quite hills of rural Oregon "I can't tell yet if this is my very favorite camp." It's true. It was a prime spot. We woke up during the night with pouring rain but as we rode southwest this morning closer to the ocean, the sky cleared and it might be a drier day for us.

We are planning on having a lighter day today as it is almost noon and we are still icing the eye, resting the sore knee from the climbs yesterday and figuring out how to enrich our all spaghetti and ramen diet we have left. In the meantime, hope everyone is well and Matey-Mark gives his best to you all. We will write again soon.