We were up by 6 am, ate a decent sized breakfast of oatmeal and egg and cheese bagels, packed up our gear and were heading out by 7:30 am. We stayed on Hwy 101 for most of the morning. There was little wind and the traffic wasn't too bad. I think everyone who was traveling for Memorial Day was at their spot for the weekend and didn't need to go anywhere.
After an hour the winds starting picking up, except this time they were our favor. We had a wonderful tailwind that was literally pushing us along the road. I'm guessing it was a 10-15 mph tailwind. So we took advantage of this opportunity and road 110 miles for the day. I monitored our speed and we were going anywhere between 19 - 22 mph when we typically went 12-14 mph when we were riding into the prevailing winds. We kept seeing people traveling south and they were struggling. James would ask them, "how's the wind heading south? It's great heading north". I definitely glad I wasn't riding into it. It would have been brutal.
There was a nice shoulder on Hwy 101 most of the time and we had views along the ocean. The ocean is a darker blue on the Oregon coast and the coast line is more accessible. We road by Cape Sebastian State Park area and it was really pretty. There were a lot of pine trees and the road was curvy and had a lot of big rollers on it. It seemed like it would have been a nice place to camp had we not had it on our agenda to cover distance and the take advantage of our tailwind.
We went through Port Orfas, OR and then Langlois, OR. We were told by some cycle tourers that the Greasy Spoon Cafe is a great place to eat. It was closed for Memorial Day so we went into Bandon, OR. Bandon is a cute little coastal town that had a downtown area that one could tell the town was working hard to revitalize it. We ate lunch at McFarlin's bar and grill and then looked around. There was a candy store that I wanted to check out -- Cranberry Sweets. They gave out free samples and a lot of their candies are based on the cranberries that are produced locally.
The camp hosts and staff at Sunset Bay State park were very friendly and guided us to the hike/bike area. I would say that this wasn't the best hike/bike area we had stayed in at this point in the trip. We were in a grassy area that didn't drain very well when it rained. There were two cyclists set up for the night when we arrived. It turns out they were 2 of the 4 tourers we had heard about who were heading north like us. One guy was from Michigan and the other San Francisco, CA and they were heading to Vancouver, BC. One guy was on a 1995 Cannondale and had to be carrying at least 60 pounds of stuff. He had a 4 person tent, computer with solar power, and a lot of other gear. Needless to say he was traveling much slower and he was trying to figure out how to cut some of the weight.
The facilities were fine and they had nice hot showers. It was definitely much busier at this campground and we were mixed in with the car campers. Given the fact it was the Sunday night of Memorial Day weekend it was a lot louder -- radios playing, people playing games, etc.
At this point we've realized that we don't have time to make it to Astoria, OR and so we've altered our plans to turn east at Tillamock, OR. I'm curious to see it and am guessing that it has a lot dairy farms and factories that make cheese since a lot of the dairy products I've seen in the grocery stores are labeled from Tillimock, OR. I've really enjoyed this trip but I have to admit I'm starting to miss my dog.
Total miles for the day: 110 miles
Total for the trip: 672 miles
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