62.1 mi / 4:45:00 time / 13.0 mph avg. / 2698 ft. climbing
Staying at Indian Creek RV Park

After the big party last night I didn’t get to bed until after midnight, but waking up at 7am wasn’t a big deal. It’s funny how all the cyclists pretty much get up at the exact same time, I guess we’re tuned to the sun, or at least the glow of cloudy fog backlit by the sun. Since we’d be staying at an RV park tonight, which most cyclists (including this one!) generally turn their noses up at, we figured this would be the last time we’d be seeing all these people, so we said our final goodbyes, particularly to  Martin and Pierrette (aka The Canadians) and Samantha, who were all people I really liked. Brian, who continued to be oddly obsessed with me, came by to get a picture of Joel and I, but it was really just a ruse to get a close-up shot of me. Sneaky fellow! Beyond the obsession, for which I can’t really blame him, he seemed like a cool guy, and he had some interesting gear choices he was more than happy to evangelize (Sil-Tarp!)

We got a quick coffee-shop breakfast in Bandon (rode ourselves there this time) at the same place the night before we signed a petition to get a local midwife off murder charges. Then we put in an extra mile by making a wrong turn, and finally got on the correct beachside bypass which brought us back to the fog-shrouded rocks-in-the-ocean views we had seen a few days previous. Yeah yeah, more endless scenic beauty, blah blah blah. Unfortunately it stayed cloudy and cold all day (I wore my long-fingered gloves and hat for the first time riding), but it was still pretty awesome, and ocean rocks in the fog is a different flavor than ocean rocks in the sun anyway. The wind had actually turned around, so we had constant mild headwinds rather the usual big tailwinds, added on to our longest day with the 2nd biggest climbing total, but after a week of this bike touring stuff we’re big enough badasses that it was no big deal.

After a fancy lunch at Redfish in Port Orford (their clam chowder had artistic whirls of colored sauces in it), we leapfrogged our Canadians for the last time, and then, while finishing a rest stop high above an endless stretch of beach, a black Chevy pickup pulled into the turnout. Our parents had arrived! They ran on ahead and secured sites for themselves (in the packed RV area) and us (in the wide-open tent area). On the final approach into Gold Beach, we took another virtually car-free bypass off 101, where we passed a flock of sheep to whom both Joel and I had a good time yelling all sorts of nonsense. After a shower in the bathhouse that was 400% nicer on the inside than it looked from the outside, we joined them for a home- (or camper-) cooked meal of piles of beef stroganoff, kicking it old-school, plus beers brewed and delivered from my uncle (and aunt?) who they visited the night before in Washington. Yum.

Then, since it was freezing out, we all piled into the camper, which surprisingly fit 4 without much difficulty, and chatted and snacked and used the park’s WiFi.

47.4 mi / 3:27:50 time / 13.6 mph avg. / 2175 ft. climbing
Staying at Bullard’s Beach State Park

It pseudo-rained last night. Enough drops fell on our tents to completely wet them, but it wasn’t exactly rain from the sky, it was fog condensing on pine needles and then shaking off whenever the wind blew. Had to pack up the tents wet, but it wasn’t too big of a deal. The Canadians were first out, then Leslie, then us, with Samantha planning to hit the road at noon.

It was probably the crappiest day of riding yet, but even the crappiest day on the Oregon coast in September ain’t bad. It stayed cloudy the whole day, and there were no grand scenic vistas like we’d had previous days, but temperatures were coolly comfortable and the wind stayed with us.

We cruised to lunch (fish and chips + chowder + beer for both of us) in run-down Charleston. Many of the towns we’ve been through the last few days have been pretty depressed compared with those north.

Immediately after we hit the Seven Devils Road, which nicely took us off the busy Hwy 101, but we had to pay for it with several vicious climbs of 10% or more. There were a lot of (seven?) ups and downs, but I actually love the variety and trying to figure out what gear to be in makes the miles go by unnoticed. We passed three touring cyclists as yet unknown to science (or at least to Joel and I) in this stretch.

After turning into the state park around 4pm, the half-crappy day turned fully-awesome. Again we had leapfrogged the Canadians all day, and again they beat us into the hiker/biker sites. A new guy, Steve, was also set up between us and them. And then, the sun suddenly came out, and it was glorious. What a difference that distant exploding ball of hydrogen makes down here on the edge of the big ocean. It allowed us to turn the tree by our tents into a backpacker’s Christmas Tree, with all our stuff hung like ornaments to dry. We gave our parents a call to wish my mom a happy birthday and to plan tomorrow’s meetup.

By that time Samantha had also rolled in and we made plans to go the couple miles into Bandon together for some food. Joel and I were assuming we’d ride our now-unloaded bikes, but she suggested hitching a ride. Umm… sure… if it’s not about having adventures, than what are we here for? The first day we met, she was gone from her site all night because a family had invited her over to their site for dinner and a fire, and I told her that’s something way more likely to be offered to a lucky solo girl than a poor couple of dudes together like me and Joel. So here was another chance to work her girl-magic at the campground entrance while Joel and I just tried to not look too scary. Just as we were about to give up, we caught a guy who had just been checking out the campground, and who had even done a bit of touring in his younger days. He zipped us across the bridge and into the Old Town where we quickly found a Mexican restaurant. We got our margaritas and pina colada less quickly since the weird cyborg waiter spent at least a minute scanning, processing, and classifying each of our IDs.

Afterwards we walked to the grocery store; I had noticed Steve getting some firewood in camp, and suggested getting real marshmallows for this night. Samantha ran with it and collected full-on s’mores ingredients (including sticks!) to share around the fire. From the store, on about the 10th try Samantha found a slightly-creepier yet-still-friendly guy to take us back to camp in his beat-up Ford Probe at breakneck speeds.

Just as we returned, a new guy, Brian (spending a year weaving around the US), rolled in, and when I said “hello!” in the fading light he immediately said “Chicago?” Turns out he’s not an accent savant, he just thought I was part of a couple from Chicago he had heard about. Anyway, he seemed to immediately take a shine to me… I think? Then Leslie rolled in, and we all spent another good time around the campfire, creating community, as was Steve’s goal when he bought the wood. It’s cool how people are cool. To steal a good line from Joel’s secret-journal entry yesterday as he waxed philosophical, “I’m wondering if at other campgrounds 50 miles north and south there are other groups of bike tourists doing the same thing”. I hope so, because that means they’d be having a pretty good time.

59.3 mi / 4:17:56 time / 13.8 mph avg. / 3178 ft. climbing
Staying at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park

The 52 degree morning was chilly enough that I wore my pants the first 5 miles into Yachats, where we had our first real breakfast of the trip (the usual of French Toast, sausage, and a large milk for me.)

Today’s ride was truly a coast ride, as we didn’t have many large bays to circle around to pull us inland. So it was just one vista after another of Oregon’s classic rocky coastline, sometimes dropping away hundreds of feet straight down to the inrushing tide, sometimes wreathed in fog, sometimes lit by bright sunshine, and sometimes that beautiful combination of the two where shafts of sun pierce through the pines as the fog rolls down the hill. Every quarter mile was worthy of a photo, but eventually you have to ride.

Well, first we took a short hike down to the tidepools to see all the critters making a living in that environment. My favorites were the fat-ass sea stars, who make no attempt to present themselves in that nicely symmetrical shape you see in a child’s book about animals. It’s nice to have Joel along as a guide, because he’s pretty much seen the entire coast by car, so he knows a lot of cool places to check out, or even local histories.

We had only made it 30 miles by the time we stopped for another fancy lunch at a riverside seafood restaurant in the old downtown of Florence (fish tacos, yay!) Then Joel got fueled up with an espresso at a coffee shop there, and once again pushed by tailwinds, we made really good time for the second half. His knee has been holding up fine, and it seems his concerns about it are fading away, which is cool.  In general, we’ve been working together even better than I thought we would. Sometimes he’s not exactly the most decisive guy in the world, but on this trip he’s definitely taken the lead and I think we’ve hit on a good balance from the get-go.

We did an ice cream and food/beer-for-camp stop in Winchester just before the campground. The ice cream was good for calories and energy, but maybe ill-advised at 62 degrees, except that we had a big hill to climb in the last mile to warm us up again. Samantha from Texas who we met last night made it to the hiker/biker sites just before we did, and then Martin and Pierrette (the Canadians that we again were leapfrogging all day) rolled in. Joel and I took a walk after dinner and found the lighthouse (they don’t build ’em here like they do on the East Coast, I guess because here they have big cliffs to put the stubby things on!) and then got a fire going with Samantha, and were later joined by the Canadians, and finally, a third Canadian (Leslie) rolled in at nightfall to join the party. Okay, not much of a party, but standing around a campfire and sharing travelers’ tales is a pretty exciting evening for touring cyclists, and we were even able to roast some marshmallows that I appropriated from the top of a Rice Krispie Treat I had picked up earlier!

47.9 mi / 3:28:10 time / 13.7 mph avg. / 1982 ft. climbing
Staying at Beachside State Park

Another morning dawned grey with fog, but in the time I entered the bathhouse and the time I left, the entire sky above had turned blue. That was short-lived however, because as soon as we got out on the road, the fog returned. It was a nice lazy morning for a nice lazy day: a stop at a coffee stop got us muffins and a scone (and a second sighting of Ryan Kain’s bike-touring doppelganger) , but nothing to drink (Joel already had his coffee in camp with Chika’s zucchini bread). So it was another quick stop at the IGA for juice and milk and bananas.

We played leapfrog with the Canadians we met yesterday throughout the foggy morning, seeing them at various viewpoints and overlooks. Eventually the Oregon Coast Route took us off Highway 101 and on to Otter Crest Loop for a stretch. It was easily the best part of the trip so far. The skies blued up again, we were the only traffic on the road, and we were surrounded by devastating beauty. From the high bluffs through the tall trees we alternately glimpsed views of narrow coves and wide-open ocean stretching out below. And ominous high wall of fog lay across the sea like an army poised for battle, but so far the sun to the east seemed to be holding it at bay.

By noon we made it to Newport and across the treacherous bridge to the Rogue Brewpub, where of course we had to have lunch. The emphasis is clearly on the “brew” as you have to wend your way past forklifts and warehousing and towering stainless steel brewing vessels to reach the tucked-away restaurant. We both got 4-beer samplers (plus one on the house as a starter) which went well with our lunch and our now-customary cups of clam chowder.

A bit more and the never ending north breeze brought us to Waldport, the last town before our campground, before 3 o’clock. It took some convincing, but Joel finally believed me that we could find food we’d enjoy at a grocery store that we’d eat in camp. And we did pretty well there, including beers of course.

Luckily Beachside campground is not too close to the beach, because the fog had returned and brought a 55-degree chill with it, and the wind had never left. We found a well-sheltered spot within the hiker/biker area, next to our Canadians, who, despite their claims of slowness, somehow managed to beat us here. Our early arrival and the weather meant it was a perfect night for a fire, and Joel did a good job of getting it going on the first try, so we enjoyed that for a couple hours. The have some good-smelling wood here in Oregon. I thought it might be a good way to get the solo bike-touring girl the next site over to come hang out, but alas, she seemed to disappear after setting up camp.

57.3 mi / 4:05:42 time / 13.9 mph avg. / 2194 ft. climbing
Staying at Devil’s Lake State Park

The 300-site campground with 4 cars to a site, people sleeping outside in camp chairs, and a guy sneezing so loud that a woman several sites away shouted “god bless you!” got surprisingly quiet on this Labor Day’s eve. Either that or we were plenty tired and fell right asleep regardless of any fireworks or morons revving their F-350s. The morning broke foggy but had cleared before we even got out of camp.

Today’s ride included a big loop around Tillamook Bay, where a surprising amount of green pastureland found a home between the surrounding mountain peaks. It was a very windy day, but luckily they stayed behind us for the most part. 37 miles in we came to Pacific City and the Pelican Brewpub, crowded with the last gasp of summer’s tourists. There was another giant rock in the ocean here, which is just one part of the beauty along this route. I’m guessing the Oregon coast doesn’t get a lot of visitors from far away, given that the temperature tops out in the low 60s even in the best conditions, but for touring cyclists, it’s world-class.

After the brewpub, we had one of the biggest climbs we’ll have on the Oregon coast. Averaging 7% and bringing us up over 700 feet, I could only stick with Joel for the first quarter of it, and then had to let him go while I trudged the rest of the way up at 5.5mph. It wasn’t fun getting dropped, but when I stopped thinking about myself it made me quite happy. Despite that effort, I’ve been loving these Oregon downhills. Somehow they always feel like they give me more back on the way down than I put in on the way up, which is the opposite of how hills usually feel.

We might have had an easier time if the route up that hill recommended by the Oregon Coast Route map wasn’t closed, but it was at least really nice that we learned in advance that it was definitely closed, because often a road for “local traffic only” is still passable on bikes. On a homemade sign that read “NO WAY Through for Bikes or Cars” someone had added “It’s true 🙁 -Biker 8/12). Sucks for him, but he surely helped many cyclists who have come after.

Then we were into Lincoln City, which is a real city but nonetheless has a state park smack dab in the middle of it. $6 for a hiker/biker site and free showers and you have a winner. We’ve seen 10 other touring cyclists in two days, but tonight finally got to chat with one staying here as he sat at an empty site plugged into the electric to charge his full-sized laptop. Classic. Him and his girl are on a slow 3-year meander from the Yukon to Argentina. Even though a lot of people find my 4 week trips pretty hard core, I’m always envious of people who have the time and guts to do rides that go way beyond.

We walked over to a seafood restaurant where the food was good but the setting was otherworldly. The building rose on stilts above the wide sandy beach where kites dove and wheeled, while the low sun over the ocean passed through a thin veil of fog which kaleidoscoped its light into a billion shards, filling the sky and the room with a dreaming glow. It was an atmosphere that I already know will stick with me for a long time to come. And it’s only Day 2. Nice.

53.3 mi / 3:57:59 time / 13.4 mph avg. / 2526 ft. climbing
Staying at Barview Jetty County Park

I flew out of Midway on Saturday morning, after Swati was nice enough to haul herself out of bed at the crack of dawn to take me there. Checking bags reminded me why I almost never check my bags, but at least they flew free with Southwest. Joel and Ren picked me up at the airport, and shortly after we got to the house, my parents arrived! They came the hard way, driving in their camper-truck over five days, but at least they didn’t have to check bags!

After lunch Joel and Chika came along to the Amtrak station to pick up my bike, which I had shipped ahead earlier in the week via Amtrak Express. I was scolded for sneaking a couple bags inside the box (not by the crusty old lifer, but by the cute young Amtrak employee, a creature I didn’t even know existed!), though the box was actually in better shape than other times I’d shipped it. $64 including the box, still a great deal.

Though we had considered getting a ride out to the coast that afternoon, we decided to wait until Sunday morning, which I think was a good decision. That gave us more time to hang out with Noah and Ren, put down an rib-sticking meatloaf dinner courtesy of Chika, do some final prep, and catch up on much-needed sleep.

So Sunday morning, we packed the bikes on the Subaru and drove out to the coast at Astoria with my parents in the back seat. After a final setup and goodbye, we were off and riding, with my parents driving the Subaru back to Portland. But hopefully we will hook back up in a few days.

The riding started cool and easy. For the entire 168 hours through Oregon, the temperature is never expected to rise above 63 nor drop below 53. I let Joel set the pace, and a nice tailwind kept us zipping along. Labor Day holiday traffic was pretty insane, but manageable. We got our first view of the Pacific Ocean in Cannon Beach, and the bustling shops and streets of the cute tourist town helped slowly bring me along to feeling like I’m on vacation. It was warm in the bright sun, but a Floridian would have thought all the people insane for going to the beach on a day with such dreadful conditions. Relativity is a funny thing.

After a yummy lunch of meatloaf sandwiches that Chika had packed for us, we had a couple more good hills to climb, some bridges to cross, and a tunnel with flashing “bicyclist inside” lights to traverse. We made a big loop around Nehalem Bay with lots of smaller ups and downs, and then hit the only flat and straight section of the day through Rockaway Beach. It’s such a contrast to the alluvial plain of the Atlantic Coast I rode with Dennis a couple years ago: here the fingers of the mountains run right to the sea, and even past it.

Someone left their rock in the ocean.

Above Manzanita

Nearing our destination, I put too much trust into a back entrance shown by my computer maps and led us into a Methodist campground, down a gravel road, then a dirt road, and then right to a locked gate topped with barbed wire, with our campground right on the other side. Ugh. Joel was kind enough to take it all in stride.

The $5 Hiker/Biker sites at Barview Jetty are regular, individual sites, which is unusual, though “induvidual” is a stretch for any of the sites. I have never seen such a densely packed campground. We saw a couple sites where people strung up tarps between trees to provide a bit of privacy! Though even on Labor Day weekend some 10% of the 300 sites were untaken. We walked back out to the campground entrance for a Mexican food truck dinner, and then talked in camp over beers and snacks before heading to the chilly beach to catch the sunset.

And bird crapped on my seat while I was standing a foot away. Better than my head I guess!

About a decade ago, I first realized that I could travel with my bicycle for distances longer than I could ride in a day. Carry a few things with me, and I could ride almost indefinitely, seeing the country from a slower, more connected perspective, just as a casual ride through your neighborhood brings a wholly different perspective than a dulling drive out to work. The beauty of it is that I get to divide the days’ rides by pitching a tent and spending the nights just as in touch with the Earth as I spend the days. Before my first trip, I was pretty sure I would love the experience, and luckily, I did. Now heading out for my sixth multi-week tour, I love that I still love it.

For the third trip in a row, I’ll have a partner. My brother Joel will be joining me for the first week, finally turning to reality an idea we’ve talked about for years. We start near his home of Portland, Oregon, and will ride down the entirety of the Oregon coast from north to south. Near the California border, we will be joined for a night or two by our parents in their camper, in a nostalgic echo of the last family vacation we ever took, some 20 years ago, a drive in the reverse direction from California to Portland.

After we enter California, and after my family heads back north, I will leave the Pacific behind and head towards the mountains. I enter the Sierra Nevada range at Lassen Volcanic National Park, and will travel down spine of the mountains for the next three weeks, falling out the tail at Los Angeles. In between I will stop at Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, and Sequoia National Park, hoping that gravity’s unceasing and ever-present war with me will do nothing to dislodge the affinity for mountains and forests that seems embedded in my soul.

My bike is already waiting for me in Portland, I fly out to join it tomorrow, and will be out on the road with my brother that day or the next. I intend to write a daily journal that I will post here, and I intend to see many things that will overwhelm my skills at photography, but I will shoot nevertheless. Bookmark the following link to keep up with the latest, and I will also post notifications on Facebook.

https://www.gregie.com/neil/words/category/bike/2012tour/

Thanks for reading, and I love to read comments from friends and family when I’m out on the road!

43.69 miles / 2:47:43 time / 15.6 mph avg. / 915 ft. climbing
Staying at North Branch Conservation Area

Some six weeks ago, I joined Dennis for his shakedown trip preceding his Rocky Mountain tour, which kicked off a month before my own upcoming tour along the Oregon coast and up and down the length (and height!) of the Sierra Nevada mountains through California. For me, that was just a “get in shape” trip (and I definitely need to get in shape for this one!), as I didn’t yet have all the new equipment that I would need to “shake down”.

What new equipment? Well, I’m leaving the solar panel behind for my electricity needs, and instead using my hub generator with a Pedalpower+ cable to charge my USB-powered devices. One of those USB devices is Nexus 7 tablet, which sits between my smartphone and my ultraportable PC in terms of functionality (and weight!) I’m using it to write up this post right now, and also used it to import photos from my DSLR camera, like this one:

In that photo you also see another new thing, my JetBoil stove, which replaces my liquid white gas stove.

Between Dennis’s shakedown trip and the start of my tour, I began to get scared that I wouldn’t have a chance to do my own. One weekend I was attending (and photographing) my cousin’s wedding, another weekend I came down with a brutal cold, and all the while work was getting more and more insane. So any out-and-back trip would have to be short. But where is there a campground within 50 miles of Hoffman Estates?

When I did a 90 mile training ride a couple months ago, I learned about this new McHenry County conservation area at the end of the Prairie Trail near the Wisconsin border. It’s on the Grand Illinois Trail, a 400-some mile loop around Northern Illinois, and the County was cool enough to mow an area of grass near the parking lot and allow cyclists to overnight there. There’s water, a vault toilet, and some tables. Technically you’re supposed to get a permit, but there is no information at all about how to get such a permit (or how much it costs), neither on the Internet nor the brochure and information kiosk here at the park, which I interpret to mean they don’t give a crap. After doing a bunch of work, I rolled out of my house near 4pm (latest start ever!) and got here shortly before sundown. There were three cars in the parking lot, which slowly trickled out, and no one ever stopped by to ask for my permit (or even close the gate). 2nd free-camping shakedown trip in a row, woo hoo!

Savannah:
Given how well we did on camping, this was my first real opportunity to be a marauder of the hotel breakfast buffet.  Waffles, biscuits and gravy, cereal, hard-boiled eggs, donuts, fruit, etc.  If they had it, I ate it!

We relaxed in our room, then checked out at 11am to see more of the city, leaving our bikes behind.  We visited many of Savannah’s famous squares, which are presumably annoyances for drivers who must navigate around them, but form beautiful park-like oases for those on foot.  Public spaces all around the city, not only the squares, are shaded and cooled by spreading canopies of iconic Live Oaks, with their hanging beards of Spanish Moss.  A natural air-conditioning, they make the city liveable under temperatures that would otherwise be unbearable.  Along with the countless stately historic buildings, there is seldom a stretch of flat sidewalk to be found.  Stone, brick, and even seashells underfoot add to the old-world charm of the city.

We lingered for some time at an independent coffeshop (root beer float and a spinach scone for me), frequented by many still-comfortingly-idealistic students from the nearby Savannah College of Art and Design.  Then after some more sightseeing, it was time to leave Savannah behind, riding our bikes at below-sweat-threshold speed to the Amtrak station out in a desolate wasteland that made the historic city even more beautiful in comparison.

At less than 12 hours, it was a “short” train ride to DC, and despite the wailing 2-year-old across the aisle, I somehow got excellent sleep, which made it go even faster.

Washington DC:
Union Station in DC is by far the most-impressive train station I’ve been in.  Perhaps the the clientele attracted to the high-speed Acela Express service (connecting major centers of finance and government) is a bit different than the standard Amtrak customer, and their cash flow keeps the station well-maintained and full of amenities?

We sat down on a park bench, enjoying yet another perfect morning (though somewhat cooler than we’d been used to) and used our phones to select a hotel.  We ended up at the Grand Hyatt, for the 3rd $99 hotel in a row, though this was by far the classiest.  We couldn’t check in, so instead got a recommendation for breakfast at Lincoln’s Waffle House, a packed-in little spot presided over by an Asian man cheerfully “woo”-ing and “ayy”-ingg as he took orders and directed traffic.  Food was nothing special, but it was a fun local spot.

Then we got in a bit of monument-seeing before hopping the Metro for a subway ride back to our hotel.  This classy hotel (grand piano floating in a lagoon on the lower level) was so full of finely-dressed African-Americans that I almost felt out-of-place as a white dude in shorts.  It took a day and Dre T. Turner to help figure out what was going on.  Dre was a man in white pinstripe suit who stopped us in the stairwell as we were heading up to bed, telling us to check out his music: “Dre T. Turner, Facebook, YouTube, cdbaby.  Dre T. Turner!”  Gotta respect a man hustling that hard to get his music heard, so of course I had to check him out.  His Facebook revealed that he was actually from Chicago, and was in town to perform at the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual conference.  Ah ha.  And then that explained why, earlier in the evening, while having a beer in the brewpub across the street (amazingly, this brewpub/hotel combination was completely unplanned), we saw the streets get shut down and the President’s motorcade stream by!  The initial word was that he was actually going to our hotel, but now I think he was probably just going to the conference center a couple blocks away.  Still was cool to see.

We ended up at the brewpub after meeting the Bansal ladies and having dinner at an old Washington tavern.  Old friends of Swati’s, I’ve now met Mrs. Bansal in DC, in India, and of course many times in the Chicago area.  I’m pretty sure she’s stalking me.  🙂  They were the third group of friends we’ve met on this trip, which was very cool, because although Dennis and I seem to do remarkably well spending  350 hours straight rarely out of each others’ sight, it’s always nice to add some fresh voices to the conversation!

Before that, we had done another stretch of Metro-fueled sightseeing, including the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetary, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and perhaps my favorite, the Albert Einstein Memorial: finally a statue honoring someone for something besides skill in politics or killing people!

The next day we bagged the three branches of the Government (White House, Capitol, Supreme Court), and also visited the Air and Space Museum, where we saw no fewer than three bicycle-related exhibits: an exercise bike in Skylab, a rare example of a bicycle designed and manufactured by the Wright Brothers (resembling a bicycle of today 100 times more than a 747 resembles the 1903 Wright Flyer), and the Gossamer Condor, the first airplane to fly on human (pedal) power.  Ourselves, we were operating on foot-power alone, as we shipped our bikes straight through from Savannah to Chicago.  Plenty of bicycles around town though, many annoyingly piloted on the sidewalks.  Git in the street, people!

It was my third visit to Washington, but first in 15 years, and still very enjoyable.  I was fearing that the post-9/11 Washington would be a defaced mess of high fences and concrete barricades and blast walls.  Certainly things are more locked-down and surveilled than I remember them (we were sudddenly herded away by police from the White House South Lawn when a visitor for the President was arriving), but on the whole, the monumental edifices are able to overcome their lowly barriers.

So it was another great day in an interesting place, and with a mere 18 hour train ride remaining, a good end to what, on the whole, was a pretty darn good two weeks.

Alarm went off at 5:50am, so that we could get up and out of our motel as soon as possible to cover the 107 miles to Savannah before the heat would suck out all our drive and motivation.  The original plan had us doing another night of coastal camping between Charleston and Savannah, for two days of about 80 miles apiece.  Getting to the coast takes you significantly off the direct route between the two cities, so compressing those two days into one cuts the total distance considerably, but it would still be by far the longest effort of our trip.  In the middle of the day before, as the oppressive heat was sucking out our life force, I didn’t think it would be doable, but checking the route and weather after a relaxing evening, my confidence returned.  The main advantage would be that it would give us a whole day to actually see Savannah, and given how much good camping we’d done, I wouldn’t feel bad about missing another night.

The morning got off to a rough start for Dennis, as I stabbed him in the eye with my finger, when reflexively snatching to grab my tipping bike as I was attempting to hook up my headlight.  Luckily no serious harm was done, and after that, everything went very smoothly.  We broke the ride into 13-16 mile chunks, switching leading/drafting positions halfway through each chunk, and then breaking for drinks, food, stretching, and hand/butt relief between them.  We managed to cover the first 63 miles, a full day’s ride for a few other days on this trip, by 11am!

Those were the easy miles, even if it was glasses-fogging humid early in the morning.  In contrast, the next 44 to Savannah put us on butt-bruising I-95 frontage roads, turned us into the wind, and rained molten bits of the sun down upon us.  But when you know that you have 7 hours to cover the final 44 miles of a bike tour, and will have no riding to do the next day, the mental trickery to keep yourself moving is almost automatic. 

The final 14 mile stretch was the worst of all, as we returned to crazy US 17 traffic, on a narrow two lane road with hazy illusions for shoulders, and winds trying to prevent you from staying on that straight narrow line.  Hardly a recommended Adventure Cycling route!  But the truck drivers, trying to blast and frighten us off the road, had no idea who they were dealing with.  We’d already gone 100 miles, and nearly 1000 in 12 days, so it takes a bit more than jerk truck drivers to bother us. We pressed on doggedly, eventually coming to a twin of yesterday’s towering cable-stayed bridge that would take us into Georgia.  Mr. Talmadge didn’t put the same cycling facility into his bridge as Mr. Ravenel did, but it was more manageable than I’d feared.

As we crested the summit together, 107 miles in, and saw the downhill ahead with Savannah awaiting at the foot of the bridge, I had one of the best “end of tour” feelings I’ve had.  We’d made it, and I was especially happy for Dennis, who could feel that special emotion he missed on our last tour.  The roll down was glorious, and a fitting end to a pretty awesome bike tour.

We repeated the the brewpub-hotel strategy and got another place (the Inn at Ellis Square) that was very accommodating to us and our bicycles.  We meandered over to the brewpub, stopping for an appetizer drink off one of Savannah’s many squares.  This brewpub (Moon River) had much better beer, and very good food too, though surely anything would taste better after an epic tour-ending ride than it does the night before. 

So that brought an end to the riding portion of the trip, but there are still some (relaxing!) days to come before we return to the real world.