As we were sitting around the campfire just 20 minutes or so into the burn, some lightning and thunder decided to come out and say hello. There was no rain, so we continued to enjoy the fire. But about an hour in, the sky started to sprinkle on us then quit. This happened about three times until the last became an all-out drenching downpour. We all quickly ran for our tents and said goodnight. In the morning we woke up to sunny skies, birds chirping and grass evaporating the rain from the night before.
Because today was going to be an easy day, we got out of bed around and enjoyed making breakfast and hangout before taking down camp.
We got on the road around noon. Late start, but not bad for about a mile day. We headed out and chose to take the less traveled 7 Devils highway to bypass some of the busy Our legs were burning, but it was the good kinda burn. We knew we were working for it and the reward of going down was so nice. The overall elevation gain was only 1, feet in a total of 33 miles.
We ultimately got to Bandon around After indulging ourselves in all this goodness, we hurried to where we would be staying for the night through Warm Showers.
Our host was a kind older woman by the name Suzy and her partner Ed. Their home was on Laurel Lake seven miles south of Bandon on the west side of Their house is beautiful, and the lake was spectacular.
Maarten, Heather, and I went for a swim and paddle boarded in the lake, this lake is at a surface temperature of 76 degrees and 72 degrees 6 feet down. It was so refreshing to explore and relax around the lake after our ride today. After we got in, Suzy offered us some drinks and homemade angel food cake. What a wonderful way to end the day. More information and pictures for Day 10 located Here! Suzy got up early to get the mornings eggs from the chickens, made homemade blueberry muffins, and cut up some fresh cantaloupe.
We spent a few hours hanging out, talking, and eating before it was time to take down camp and set off down the road for yet another day. The route for the day took us quite a bit inland before spitting us back out on the coast just north of Port Orford.
Heather and I loaded up our bikes with a bunch of food and wine and hit the road. Arriving at camp pretty early, maybe in the afternoon, we quickly set up camp to hurry down to the beach and cool off from the very hot day of riding inland. But we made do with what we had and enjoyed it the best we could. Maarten jumped in the ocean while Heather and I sat in our chairs cooling off in the wind. Brian and Ashley our friends from southern Oregon were just a few miles south in Gold Beach so they decided to make the drive with the two little ones and Charlie their dog to visit for a little bit.
It was nice being able to hang out for an hour or so catching up and seeing how things were going. In the evening, we were able to have a fire with dinner because we were able to scrounge up some firewood from other vacant campsites. We could stay up because the next day we would be sleeping in and taking our first rest day with absolutely no riding.
Heather and I got up out of bed around 10 am and made breakfast. After we ate, we got our stuff together to go to the beach. We ended up spending about 3 hours down by the water hanging out and relaxing.
After that, we came back to have lunch and relax in camp. Heather and Maarten read while I made a bracelet from some rope that had washed ashore. With more time to kill, Heather took a long shower as did I.
After each of our showers, we made dinner, then walked back down to the beach to see what it was like. It was super cold and windy, so we decided to come back to make a fire and play games. More information and pictures for Day 11 located Here!
Day This morning we all woke up from Humbug State Park after our rest day and got on the road earlier than we have the whole trip: am. It was cool getting on the road that early because we were done an hour and a half earlier than normal.
Although there were 3, ft of elevation, we did it in 4. Luckily tomorrow will be a shorter day for a pseudo rest day. Once we arrived at camp Harris Beach State Park around , we quickly set up camp and took a shower before heading into Brookings to get our provisions for the night. After dinner, we met some older gentlemen who were retired and were cycling the same route as us.
They have done it a few times and a few other routes as well. They had so much wisdom and insight that they could shed onto us to help us later down the road. After all the conversations, it was time to go to bed for one last night. So, this was our last night all together. In the morning Grandma Frankie will be picking him up along with the bike and trailer to take him and the stuff back to Grants Pass. The final distance for the day was 51 miles of the tour plus 4 miles going into town and back.
Our overall distance is More information and pictures for Day 12 located Here! Day This morning we woke up very relaxed because it was an easy day and Grandma Frankie would be picking Maarten up. We went down to Brookings Harbor marina for lunch. We went to our favorite fish and chips restaurant.
The whole morning with grandma was super nice, sunny, and hot. But after we ate lunch and put on our cycling gear the fog rolled in and it became very cold. We rode the entire length of Oregon and half the length of Washington and now we were in California… So crazy!! The fog prevented us from seeing the ocean most the day, so the ride became more about our conversations and riding right next to each other than staring out at the beautiful scenery.
This day was an easy day of riding of only 32 miles and a measly ft of elevation gain. Good thing we had an easy day because tomorrow will be about the same distance as 8 times as much elevation gain as today. More information and pictures for Day 13 located Here!
Day Today we woke up early to plan the rest of our trip down to San Francisco. We only have 11 days of cycling left. We set off from the church in Crescent City around and began our huge accent up into the redwoods. It was a crazy road, no shoulders, but we made ourselves wide by owning the road and making vehicles go around us instead of zooming right past us. The ascent was tough but the downhill was rewarding. We had three big hills and one last downhill that lasted for almost 5 miles before getting us into camp for the night.
In the town of Klamath, we found a super energetic man selling smoked salmon. He was a good salesman and we bought some very flavorful smoked salmon from him. For lunch, we stopped halfway up our second mountain to have lunch. We put pieces of salmon on a bagel with cream cheese.
It was so good, just the thing we needed to get us up the second half of this mountain and the last one just a few miles down the road. As we were entering Elk Prairie State Park, we coasted in and were just enjoying all the amazing redwoods that lined the road.
Heather coasted for more than 5 miles while I rode with no hands and took pictures of everything cool. As we rolled into camp, we met up with a girl we chatted with in Humbug State Park and recognized two other cyclists from Humbug as well.
For the day we rode 36 miles with an elevation of 2, feet. We ended with a total distance of More information and pictures for Day 14 located Here! Day This morning we woke up at 7 and was on the road by The 6 people, 5 bikes, and 4 micro-groups merged to form the wolf pack.
We road together from Elk Prairie to Eureka, having a spectacular day together. We took so many pictures, stopped at an ice cream shop in Trinidad to have ice cream and left having an everything mashed potato waffle cone meal- seriously one of the most flavorful and delicious meals we have ever eaten.
After Trinidad, we continued south along the and stumbled upon a bike route that paralleled the highway, so we backtracked on the road a hundred yards or so and took it into Arcata for the last 10 or 15 miles.
Once we arrived in Arcata, we planned on going into the Finnish saunas and hot tubs, but little did we know you had to have a reservation to use the baths, especially in a college town when 8, kids are flocking back for school this week. We will just let you know 5 minutes past.
Sure enough, this appointment was a no show and the wolf pack was able to soak in the hot tubs for a solid half-hour. It was so nice and relaxing to have this luxury. After this treatment, we ventured over to the Humboldt Brews for a fabulous burger, sweet potato fries, and a beer. Then we only had 5. In the evening we played Bananagrams and made camp ice cream out of heavy whipping cream and berries. Seriously so delicious!
In total for the day, we traveled More information and pictures for Day 15 located Here! We all ate breakfast and drank coffee before the whole wolf pack decided to take off down the road.
The pack had the option of taking a long-winded detour along the beautiful Lost Coast of California before returning back to Highway , but decided to forego it due to time and the knowledge of it just being massively hilly!
Upon making this decision, we only had a few miles of going down the until google maps had us leave to go on an alternate route that would allow us to have fewer cars and be more scenic. Therefore, we would most likely be seeing some hills with unknown elevations. As we hit this hill in the farmlands outside Eureka, figuratively speaking, we were about to be hit upside the head with a cast-iron pan, the hill was a mountain with a straight-up foot vertical ascension.
Once we made it to the top, the views of rolling grasslands of Humboldt County were amazing. It was worth not being around cars and being able to see some pretty scenery.
With only a few miles more, we stopped in the small town of Rio Dell to make lunch and rest before entering the Avenue of the Giants. This place was amazing. Some of the most fun riding we have done. Halfway through we stopped at an organic farm to get fresh veggies, walk through the sunflower garden, and eat blackberry popsicles.
Afterward, we only had about 8 more miles to camp. We camped at Burlington State Park within the redwoods.
The overall day was good, hot, but not too intense. More information and pictures for Day 16 located Here! The day was good. It was hot and hard, but it was overall an amazing ride. We took the advice of Google again and it took us up a couple of steep hills. Even though we had to go up no matter what today, Google had us go up steeper stuff than if we just stayed on Highway It was a very quaint and unique town with the locals and the older western-style buildings throughout the town.
This place had some weird geothermal activity going on that made some physics not act typically. We ended up spending about an hour and a half here relaxing and getting our mind blown before arriving at camp. As soon as we got done, we went over to the store and bought cider and beer. What a refreshment! As we got into the park, we found out that there was a swimming area a short hike down the canyon. So, we quickly set up camp to have an hour or so down in the river. After spending only a few minutes down at the water, we all knew that we wanted to spend a rest day here relaxing with awesome jumping rocks as well.
The next day we all slept in, made pancakes, and hung out down at the river. In the evening, Chris who is a chef in Vancouver, BC, made us an awesome quinoa meal! We ended up riding More information and pictures for Day 17 located Here!
Day So today was the next segment of our major incline. The five of us took off from Standish Hickey State Park on the and climbed Legget Hill for three miles then had nearly 10 miles of downhill. The downhill was amazing. The corners were hairpin turns with caution speed recommendations of 10mph.
I would go into some of the corners at 35mph. So fun. Then the rest of the day was up and down. We arrived via California Hwy 1. It is super pretty, and we finally got back to the coast. For lunch, we stopped at the outrageously expensive minimart.
But it was comical and that was good enough for us. We continued to Mackerricher State Park. This is where the Wolfpack finally had to part ways. The others needed to keep going to make sure they made it to San Francisco by Friday. We will arrive on Saturday and will hopefully meet up once again there. If not, we will have a reunion sometime.
We found out there was a brewery just 4 miles south in the town of Fort Bragg along with the famous Glass Beach. So we had to go check them both out after our two-hour nap. We had a wonderful day. Our mileage for the day was The overall distance is now More information and pictures for Day 18 located Here! It seems chainsaw carving is the great thing there. I am not kidding, they had a contest there and sell chainsaw-carved, hm, art masterpieces everywhere.
Speaking of food, the picture shows soft drink bottles. The bottles are made of clear plastic, the bright color is the color of the liquid! The road ahead is so beautiful, passing through many unpopulated stretches along the coast with view of the Pacific Ocean, through parks and forests, that there is really little reason to submit to the plans that local village tourist offices had for our vacation.
Riding in Washington was easy. The roads mostly have wide shoulders and there wasn't much traffic. We had several tunnels, like the one shown in the picture. These tunnels had a button at the entrance for bicyclists to press that turns on flashing lights and warns motorists that there are bicycles in the tunnel and they might perhaps consider driving carefully. We were lucky and always had downhill tunnels, and didn't meet any logging trucks in a tunnel.
A logging truck is a huge truck loaded with logs, and can be rather frightening when passing at high speed. They are more indigenous to Oregon though. We left Washington on a very long bridge to Astoria in Oregon. This bridge begins level and then has a steep incline, followed by a curved decline into Astoria. It turned out to be rather dangerous because of gaps in the road surface and one certain RV driver who didn't have a clue how wide such an RV really is.
Adrenalin city. We decided to ride into Portland, the largest city in Oregon, which was a mistake. Highway 30 from Astoria to Portland has a lot of traffic, is rather un-scenic, and gets more so the closer we got to Portland. Compared to the breathtaking scenery we found elsewhere on the coast, the amenities of a city aren't really worth the traffic; next time I'll stay at the coast whenever possible.
The real trouble with Portland is its youth hostel. It looks nice enough from the outside, but it's a mixture of refugee camp and makeshift detention facility inside.
We were stowed in the dark and smelly basement, one huge room with beds everywhere and a bathroom that makes Alcatraz prison look like the Hyatt Regency. The windows were below ground and barred.
If there had been a fire we'd all be dead. The other room was built from some two-by-fours leaning against the house, holding up a transparent plastic tarp in the yard. Riding out of Portland back to the coast isn't easy.
There is no motel and no campground all the way to the coast. The road is scenic, mostly farms and forests, like in the picture. We didn't expect this long trip and eventually ran out of food and patience, when we found this small farmer's market at the roadside. This is the story of my bicycle trip from Seattle to San Francisco, along the spectacular Pacific Coast route, July , Route based on Bicycling the Pacific Coast. Seattle to San Francisco by Bike.
Tom Payne Seattle, Washington August 1, Why this trip? Was I prepared?
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