Miles Today: 13.1    Total Miles: 54.6

At the cabin we slept in clouds that night. Woke up at 7am to get ready, have a yummy breakfast, and get going by 8am. Of course that didn’t happen. We need to get the process faster to get the most of our days. I was sad to leave the cabin, it was a nice cozy place, great for a honeymoom or a nice vacation if you wanna get away ;)

Right out of the cabin we encountered our first tunnel. It was short but no shoulder so I decided to get on the sidewalk and walk my bike to be extra safe, the guys decided to pedal their way through (it was uphill too). We stopped to take more pictures along the way, beautiful views of the coast, cliffs, rocks. Awesomeness. Our goal today? Nehalem Bay State Park. We decided at the cabin that we would go state park to state park all the way down to Oregon taking our time and stopping to sight-see as much as we can and if we make it to CA then great, if not, great too. So off toward Nehalem we went.

We reached a hill, not as bad as the previous day. My knees feel stronger, I stopped more often for a few seconds to catch my breath and give my knees a break enough to take the burn away. All I kept thinking was Ryan’s saying “once I pass the burn, I got into this place and I just go…” I must be lost cause I can’t’ find that place. His encouragement and patience helped me again and I managed to get to the top without a tear of frustration (finally).

After a fast downhill we stopped at Oswald State Park, a day use only to recharge. We saw some surfers with their boards going to the water (niiiice) while we had snacks and water, used the bathroom, and Ryan and Lance argued about Lance’s overuse of the phrase “you know”. Once in Manzanita, there’s only 3 miles to the park. After another hill, I rushed down at 28 miles per hour until we stopped at this market at the bottom of the hill to get lunch, dinner and breakfast for the next morning. Here’s where we decided to stay in Nehalem for an extra day to rest.

Going uphill towards the park, Lance’s gears weren’t working right, something I struggled with before the trip. It’s really frustrating when your chain comes off or it won’t catch especially when you’re going uphill. This was a short steep hill but it got really frustrating. We finally got it working and off we went to the campground. A nice hiker-biker site right at the entrance of the park, we just found out about these campsites for only $4 per person for all hikers or bikers. We thought we’d have to pay $20 something every time. Great price!

There was no one at the site so that was nice too. Showers and bathrooms were a minute away, nice too. Nothing better that a free hot shower after a long sweaty day. We made dinner, got the fire started, and shared a beer and tried to warm up, it got pretty chilly rather quickly cause of the wind. The beach is a short walk away, there’s the bay too and some trails. We saw tons of people running around the park and cycling too. It was also nice to be far from the RVers.

The next morning we slept in to rest, Ryan and I walked to the beach and took some pictures while Lance went on a quick bike trip toward the bay. We had a nice breakfast and we found out the crows really don’t like people, especially campers. They ate our food, our sausages and fruit we had for dinner. Jerks. They try to wake you up early as if kicking you out of the campground. But we’re not going anywhere. The guys worked on some music while I wrote on my journal for hours it seemed like. I got to play on my drum I brought, a small djembe that helps kill time from time to time, Lance showed me some rhythms and we played along. Looking forward to doing some more.

In the evening we met our first fellow biker. His name is Matthews, from California also doing the same route we are, except that his much stronger and more trained so he started in Canada and is going to try to make it to Mexico. He’s carrying a bob trailer full of stuff, he said it’s really heavy and this is his 3rd one, the others have broken down, prolly from all the weight he has in it. When it got dark, we got the fire going again and he joined us for hot cocoa and talked to him a little bit. He’s nice guy with a permanent smile and with a great outlook of life, doing something good for himself to recharge his mind. We wish him the best in his future career and trip.

Next morning we got up at 5:30am to get on the road by 7am, but really that didn’t work out but we’re doing better. We were on the road by 9am. Destination: Cape Lookout! They say this place is wonderful, we’ll see.

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