Astoria to Garibaldi

63.5 Miles, 3150 feet climbing, road kill report below.

First, since so many of you have expressed interest in the road kill report, we can say that today the animals fared much better OR perhaps, ODOT (Oregon Dept of Transportation) is cleaning them up faster as they recognize that too much carnage is bad for business on the coast. Without further delay, the count today was 5 snakes, 2 birds, 2 unknown things with fur. Our advice to snakes in Oregon - WAKE UP. DON'T SUN YOURSELF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.

Yesterday was a bit of a tough day - not great scenery; lots of traffic and sore legs. Deborah was considering her options last evening (not really :-) and we enjoyed a sunset under the big bridge before heading to bed very early.




Today's route was fantastic! If you click on the route link, I've mapped the route in Google. It is surprisingly accurate for mileage as our odometer registered 63.5 miles and the Google route is 62.5 miles. We had about .5 miles additional journeying because of a wrong turn and also about .5 miles because the actual path through Seaside is along an ocean promenade (which Google won't map) so I show the map as being a little east of the actual route.

Some highlights of the day included stopping at Fort Clatsop (Lewis and Clark over wintering fort near Astoria).
And, of course, all of the amazing views of the Pacific Ocean.

Riding along the promenade in Seaside was very pretty and the views of the Haystack Rocks in Cannon Beach were great as well. The big climb to the overlook just north of Manzanita was a bit of a grunt but the views at the top were endless. And the route after our lunch in Manzanita that was parallel to 101 was through a beautiful valley with virtually no traffic. We came across what looked like the remnants of some type of animal farm there.

After four days of seeing virtually no cyclists, today we hit the mother lode! We saw three cyclists that we actually saw in Shelton as well. Plus another through cyclist and a tour group with Bicycle Adventures. It was nice to see so many other cyclists on the road. 101 was busy but not nearly as bad as Oregon 30. The drivers were more courteous except for some lady in a Cadillac Escalade who swerved towards us on purpose after she barely passed us. I wish there were cops around when you need them - so much road rage! But the RV drivers were more courteous and even though there were lots of scary big logging trucks, those guys are professionals and by and large pretty respectful of space.

And for our most unusual sighting of the day, there was a sailboat wedged high in some trees, many miles inland from the ocean. What's up with that??

We'll have three relatively easy days the next couple of days as our preferred places to stay will dictate distances (Pacific City, Newport, Florence). We'll be in Pacific City tomorrow - apparently, this is a real surf capital and we hope to see some folks kayak surfing there. Our route there leaves 101 near Tilamook and takes the "Three Capes" route and stays along the ocean. Hopefully most of the traffic stays on 101. We might not have internet access in Pacific City so don't be surprised if there isn't a post until the next day.