Day4 - Cannon Beach - Oretown
71.0 miles
Bikes - first 40 miles, Giant Innova
second 31.0 miles, Specialized Roubaix
Time in saddle - about 5:30
Total elapsed miles: 251
July 7, 1961 - Got late start. Bought breakfast in Ilwaco. Pancakes.
Reached Megler at 10:00.
Caught ferry just right! Paid 25 cents.
Hills along coast very hard. Looked like rain for a while but cleared up. Almost stopped at Oswald West State Park but pushed on 36 miles more. Rode 86 miles today for an average of 100 for 2 days. May be home in two weeks yet. Camped in roadside rest area four miles south of Tillamook at 8:45.
P.S.: Changed spoke. Bought extras in Tillamook. Man gave me tea, pie, coffee. Some boys with their supervisor from McLaren School for Boys just brought me a plate of food, sandwich and Kool Aid which, naturally,I accepted.
Just cooked popcorn.
I don't know exactly when the Megler-Astoria ferry was replaced by the existing bridge. However, according to the "50 years Ago" column in the local paper we read this morning, they were drilling core samples for the footings for the bridge, so it must date from the early-mid sixties.
The man who gave me tea, pie and coffee was the owner of the one bike shop in town, He invited me into his kitchen after selling me my spokes. I wasn't able to determine if Tillamook's one bike shop now, Drake's, descended from the 1961 one. We couldn't find it and they didn't answer their phone. In later years McLaren School For Boys morphed into the Oregon state youth reformatory system. Seemed like decent enough boys. They invited me to play chicken-fight with them.
June 23, 2011: We spent the night in a Shilo Inn in Seaside and drove back down to Cannon Beach to look for bike shop, Found one, Mike's, just opening, who agreed to have a look at the Giant's drive chain and do the needful while we waited. Ninety minutes, $120, a new chain, cassette and center chain ring later we still had mysterious skipping and slipping in the second and third-highest gears on the rear sprocket, but as we were burning daylight I said I would work around it and began my ride in an intermittent drizzle.
Those hills along the coast are still very hard. After going through the Arch Cape tunnel - a slightly scary experience in spite of the flashing of rider-activate warning lights, the climb began in earnest. Afteer about the first 600 vertical feet (think eight or so consecutive Campground Hills), you get a downhill, then you do it again until you reach 800 feet and the Oswald West State Park overlook, providing a spectacular view down the coast. It is no longer a camping park.
After three grueling hours I finally caught up with Bob in Tillamook, where we had a sandwich at the Tillamook Cheese works, now a major tourist attraction. Some miles before the town I had overtaken three other southbound riders, a young man I'll call Blackbeard, who said he was "local," a 20-something woman laded with serious gear, and a man of about the same age, also heavily laden, and towing a one-wheel trailer. One of them was riding all the way to San Diego, the other only as far as Santa Barbara.
As the rain had long before stopped and the land flattened out, I switched to my Specialized, and with a steady breeze at my back, headed south on 101. By doing so I was also taking bike shop Mike's route advice and bypassing what would have been the second, and even more vertical, 800-foot headland of the day.
Several miles south of T'mook, as the highway began to rise, I saw a group of riders resting on the shoulder. As I got nearer I recognized Blackbeard and company. As I slowed and asked the obligatory, "Are you all right?", Blackbeard took a long draw on a stick of Oregon's best, exhaled, passed it on to the young woman and assured me things were cool.
After a relatively fast and comfortable 30 miles I rendevous'ed with Bob at 6:00 at a rest stop a little south of the crossroads of Oretown. We drove the 51 miles to Seal Rock and the lovely seaview home of Bob's cousin Jean and her husband Charlie. I had not seen Jean since Bob and I were still young, but did not get to renew my acquaintance with Charlie. Although retired from the U.S. Forest Service, he still works on an on-call basis managing firefighting crews around the country, this time combatting a blaze in Georgia's Okefenooke. We enjoyed an excellent, healthy, carb-rich dinner of Jean's tortilla soup and a good Oregon Chardonnay.
Tomorrow morning, Bob will shuttle me back north to today's end point and return to Seal Rock to spend the day woth Cousin Jean. I will ride the 51 miles back south and add another 20 or so before calling Bob to pick me up. I'm looking forward to another pleasant and restful evening and night chez Jean.
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