Yachats to Winchester Bay

54.5 miles, 2700 feet of climbing, road kill (1 raccoon, 1 crow, NO SNAKES)

Well, last night we enjoyed one of our best meals of the trip at the Yachats River House - absolutely delicious. In fact, the stay at Overleaf combined with our meal made for our best overall experience between lodging/food of the trip. We'd highly recommend a stay in this part of the Oregon coast as a relaxing getaway.

Our route today was 100% on 101 but the surface was generally good; traffic was lighter and the views during the first half of the ride were among the best of the trip. We found ourselves pulling off at many roadside pullouts and pocket state parks enjoying views of crashing surf along the coast.

We also had the good fortune to enjoy lunch with another long distance rider today, Sue, from Toronto. We started riding with her just before one of our two tunnels in Oregon. She is riding with someone else from Seattle -> San Diego though it sounds like they typically catch-up with each other at camping spots. We saw her riding partner later in the day and he said he was riding a 70 pound bike with all of his gear - bike alone was 33 pounds. That is a lot of weight. We are definitely glad we are going the "credit card" touring option (i.e. stay in motels) as our total weight for bikes/gear is more on the order of 40 pounds.

But, back to lunch! We ate at the last Mo's of our trip in Florence. Nothing like a good bowl of clam chowder sitting on the shoreline and watching a seal play in the water!

After lunch, we rode through Oregon Dunes National Monument. We couldn't see much from the road but we know from previous experience that there is some great opportunities to race up and down the dunes in ATV like buggies.

Just before reaching our destination, we caught up with 2 women that were on a 1 week tour of the coast. They were pulling all of their gear in "BOBS" (trailer that attached to the back of your bike). Some people really like the trailers because they can carry a great deal of gear and have a low center of gravity (so the bike handling is better). But, they are heavy - in fact probably weigh as much as ALL of our gear. It also sounds like they are not without their mechanical issues as they mentioned to us that they spent some time in the bike store (after getting a lift from a kind stranger) fixing a bent derailleur hanger caused by torque from the BOB.