The best cup of coffee and a strange State Recreation Area

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - Day 13

Today was a sunny day with a small headwind.  We were able to push ~12 mph most of the time.  The coastline on this part of the trip was gorgeous and definitely lived up to the reports we had heard from the cycle tourers we had met earlier who were heading south.  We went through Yachats, OR (pronounced "yah hahts", stopped at the Green Salmon coffee shop and, in my opinion, had one of the best cups of coffee since we started the trip.  They also served pastries and breakfast sandwiches.  While we were eating and enjoying the fabulous coffee we were able to charge our phone and Garmin.  We left Yachats and stopped by Beachside State Recreation site so James could rest his foot and I could take a bathroom break.  It had a really nice forest surrounding it and a little hiking trail that we explored.

 We rode another 15-20 miles to the next town, Walport, OR and stopped at a public library for James to determine the best route to turn inland so we could get to Portland, OR and for me, to check e-mail, Facebook and to connect with the rest of the world.  We left Walport, OR and headed to Newport, OR.  Newport, OR is a nice sized town - about 10K - and is a major port for the research ships that work with NOAA.  The bridge entering town was really pretty.  I wasn't comfortable riding my loaded touring bike on the little sidewalk available to cyclists and opted to walk my bike across.

  We stopped at the Fred Meyer for some food and ice cream, chatted with some locals about our trip and then got on our bikes and headed north.  As we were getting on Hwy 101, we saw some hitch hikers.  They jokingly asked us for a ride and we chatted a little bit.  That happened a couple other times during this trip.  The barriers that come with driving are let down because we all are sort of in the same situation -- reduced to the bare minimum in terms of belongings and trying to get somewhere using an unconventional means -- at least for today's society.

It's a bittersweet day today.  While I'm ready to have this trip wind down, I'm sad that this will be our last night on the coast.  Our goal is to make it to Lincoln City, OR, camp in the state park there and then we'll turn inland and head to Portland.  The ride to Lincoln City was really pretty, the ocean was a dark blue and we had good visibility.  There was a point in the road (after a small climb) where we were able to go to a lookout and get a great view of the ocean.

We made it to Lincoln City at a reasonable hour and found Devil's Lake State Recreation Area.  This was the strangest camping site we had on our trip and I can honestly say, in my entire life.  It was literally in the middle of town.  The hike/bike area was on the edge of the park and we could see the stop light that lead to Hwy 101 from our tent.  There were residential houses on one side of us and then the camping area on the other side.  The shower/bath facilities were very nice and the showers were hot.   If I had the choice to stay there again -- I probably wouldn't if I had the option to stay at a State Park that was before Lincoln City or had the daylight to go to the next one.  Since we planned to take Hwy 18 to get off the coast, it was our best option.

Total miles for the trip:  815 miles