Cycling the Oregon Coast, August 8th-13th, 2004

(as recounted by Shirley)

Note: The photos on this page are medium-resolution and reduced in size. Click on the photo for enlarged versions; email us if you'd like a high-res copy suitable for printing.

Mr. Relaxation: After 650 miles of driving, we made it! We snuck the bikes in so they, too, could get a good night's sleep.

Okay, so it's not all relaxation. There's about 650 miles of dead bugs that have to be removed from the bikes (one of the downsides of a roof rack for your bicycle).

The van picks us all up and loads up the bikes. That's one of our guides, Dave.

The first ride is really just a short loop for people to get familiar with their bikes. A lot of people use the rental bikes from BA. These are the remains of the Peter Iredale that went down near Fort Stevens in 1906.

"Reflections" in Seaside, Oregon

"The View from the Top". Mark rode up a steep hill to Ecola State Park to get this shot, whereas I actually knew the meaning of the word "optional" in "optional climb". I bought a great t-shirt in Cannon Beach, which had some really nice shopping.

During the trip, we usually had a "Word of the Day" provided to us by our guide. On the first day it was "confluence" because we started at the "confluence" of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Today's word of the day was "monolith". Look at the tiny people. I could cruuush them.

Monolith redux.

"Hurtling" down US-101 towards a tunnel. No worries, because we meet at the tunnel entrance, and the van creates a traffic blockade behind us to make sure we all get safely through. (If you look closely you can actually see the "light at the end of the tunnel"!)

Enjoying snacks from the van. We had no idea the van would stop every few miles with great snacks and drinks -- now we'll never be able to do an unsupported tour again! There are even "adult-style" beverages, but we save those for after the ride.

Hitting the beach! We had a picnic lunch by this secluded beach between two promontories (yes, another word of the day).

The van. It carried all our stuff, spare bikes, snacks and sometimes, us.

In spite of living near the Fog Capital of the World, I had never actually seen fog on a beach. Here's a couple of artsy-fartsy photos of the same beach.

At many points along the Oregon coast, you see this sign, which is kind of laughable.

However, then we saw this, and I didn't laugh so much anymore. "Tsunamis are dangerous and destructive. They have struck the Oregon coast repeatedly and will again in the future." Ooooooooh, I'm scared. No, really, I am!

MB trying out spokesmodelling at Cape Meares.

Giant Octopus Tree. Now if we could get both the Tsunami and the Giant Octopus together, we could have the makings of a great disaster movie.

We saw lots of lighthouses on this trip, big ones and small ones.

More great coastline. Oregon passed a law a long time ago to protect hundreds of miles of beaches and to leave them as public land.

Enjoying a nice downhill ... In this forest we actually saw some loggers cutting down trees. We realized that "if a tree falls in the forest ... no one hears it ... because of the really noisy equipment they use".

Mark bellies up to the milkshake bar in Otis. Mmmm, Tillamook Ice Cream.

Look at the water tic-tac-toe game Linda has. I used to love those when I was kid. I think Linda's was leaking.

In a moment just slightly reminiscent of Mary Kay Letourneau, MB signed the cafe guest book with a tribute to our milkshake boy, who looked 12...okay, maybe he was 15...tops.

After loading up on milkshakes, we're off to do the last 10 miles of our 68-mile day. Tomorrow is only a 25-mile day thankfully ... with a massage to look forward to!

This is the Devil's Punchbowl, which often has waves splashing up through it, but today the giant toilet bowl (as our guide referred to it), was all plugged up. Someone call a plumber!

Another great lighthouse, but it doesn't stand out nearly as well as Mark's neon cycling jacket.

Now that's a warm welcome from our hotel. More warmth greeted us inside with fresh-baked cookies!

This is the bridge we crossed the next morning. We did another van blockade, because the bridge was windy and a little uphill in the beginning. The downhill coming off the bridge was a blast.

A little cheese with your whine, sir? The guides organized a little wine and cheese soirée before dinner.

Free company T-shirts and baseball caps were given to all!

Our guide, Frank, entertains with some humourous readings from his book "A Guy's Guide to Pregancy".

There was a great tailwind this day and I was able to pedal across this bridge at 32 mph!

With a little peer pressure from Linda and Dave, I made it up to Cape Perpetua, an optional climb. Well worth it for the view!

Classic shot of the Oregon coast from Ecola State Park.

Apparently that's Oregon's most photographed lighthouse (way in the distance). I skipped that stop and went straight to the Sea Lion Caves.

Okay, so the Sea Lion cave shot was a little dark. This one of them on the beach is much better. They were very active, fighting and posturing and forcing some guys into the water.

Man-eating Plants! Okay, they're carnivorous plants and they eat tiny little bugs.

The view from our room on the last night. Despite the picturesque appearance it was WAY too windy to go out on the beach.

The Last Supper (there's even 12 of us on the trip, go figure).

Our last lunch! My butt was actually thankful to get off the bike. We did six days of riding and almost 300 miles!!

It's not a great picture, but here's our bike tour all mapped out.

Group shot. From left to right: Shirley, Mark, Chuck, Marybeth (kneeling), Margaret, Jacob, Tim, Peri, Linda, Madeleine, Kelly, Dave, Dave, Frank

We stayed in Portland for a day at the end of the bike tour. We saw the Japanese Gardens (supposedly the biggest outside of Japan) and the International Rose Test Gardens.

Rock on!

In the immortal words of Keanu, "Whoa".

Pink Rose

Yellow Rose

The rose gardens are enormous, so I could only capture a small corner of them with my camera.

Peach Rose

Portland is a great city for cycling, even going so far as to instruct its cyclists how to fall on its streetcar tracks.

We're on our way home! Through the sunroof we can see the bikes are doing just fine. My bike has never gone 70 mph except on top of the car; Mark's bike, I'm not sure about ...

And finally here is a little montage of photos of Shirley's bike. Doesn't it look great?