Monday, August 17, 2015

Reedsport to Bandon

I rode out to the end of the road today. Because I couldn't go any farther, I stopped at Cape Arago State Park. I didn't see the Golden Hinde. Sir Francis Drake pulled out in 1579. It's a good thing that he did because the Pacific was acting up driven by strong winds coming from the north, I think. The skies were clear, though and the temperatures were in the 60s. It felt colder than that.

Let me start from the beginning of the day.

Some of you know that I have been off of my bicycle for about four months so that my clavicle could heal. That has gone well. I feel little pain in my shoulder while riding. The pain that I feel is concentrated in my theighs and in my rear end. I am tempting fate on a multi-day ride with only a couple of weeks to prepare. That's why it's nice to have an accommodating sag driver who can shuttle me when I am ready to get off of my bicycle. Today's ride was scheduled to be 64 miles starting in Reedsport and ending in Bandon. We decided to shuttle to North Bend, 25 miles into the route. We got on our bicycles there and rode on a very scenic part of the route through the picturesque harbor town of Charleston. From there we continued on to the state park passing several beaches and viewpoints. Stopping at one viewpoint, we saw hundreds of California Sea Lions and other seals making lots of noise on the rocky islets near the shore.

Eventually we reached the end of the road where Ann was waiting with the sag wagon and our lunch. My legs and my rear end told me that it would be prudent to stop riding here and shuttle to our next hotel. So I did. Jeff rode on.

When we reached Bandon, we made a strategic stop at the Face Rock Creamery where we had a child's size serving. If you ever stop here, don't order anything larger. The small portion is about a pint of ice cream. And and I lazed here for a while until Jeff showed up. Then we drove to tonight's Best Western.

It was still pretty early, so we decided to take a walk on the beach. The wind was blowing so hard that we didn't last very long.

We had a very good dinner tonight at Alloro Wine Bar and Restaurant, a surprisingly upscale restaurant. My steelhead trout with tapenade was cooked almost perfectly. The sunset on the way back to the motel was spectacular.

Note: I am having a difficult time adding photos using this blogging software.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Cottage Grove to Reedsport

From Wikipedia:

"The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior that administers more than 247.3 million acres (1,001,000 km2) of public lands in the United States which constitutes one-eighth of the landmass of the country.[2] President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies: the General Land Office and the Grazing Service.[3] The agency manages the federal government's nearly 700 million acres (2,800,000 km2) of subsurface mineral estate located beneath federal, state and private lands severed from their surface rights by the Homestead Act of 1862.[3] Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.[4]"

A lot of this land is in Oregon. My son Jeff knows this because he had to get permits to have his bicycle tours go through BLM territory. We saw a lot of this land today as we rode the route for Day 2 of Via Cycling Tours Oregon Coast and Crater Lake tour. The ride started in Cottage Grove and ended in Reedsport. We cut out the first 40 miles of this 90 mile ride by shuttling to the top of the last steep hill.


As you can see in the photo above, the route was bordered by a dense forest. One side of the road was BLM land while the other side was National Forest land. The road itself was maintained by the county. It was smooth to rough chip seal.

We followed the Smith River for almost the entire ride. The weather was sunny and the temperature was in the 70s and low 80s. As you can see from the photo below, Smokey had us on alert for fire danger. Until we reached the outskirts of Reedsport, we had about 20 cars passing us in each direction.

We had dinner at the Harbor Light Restaurant. I had razor clams which is one of my favorite meals. A peanut butter pie topped it off.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Covered bridges, Dorena Lake, Rails-To-Trails Bikeway

I know a lot. I always suspected this but I wasn't reassured until I took a test on Facebook. I was rated at the Phd level. We all know how accurate these tests are. When one of my friends was rated at the Professor level, I was disappointed that my wealth of knowledge was not as rich as hers. I think that I forgot the capital city of one of the African nations. So today I added to my knowledge database.

Did you know that Oregon has 50 historic covered bridges which are among the greatest number in the U.S.? I saw four of them today on the first day of my bicycle tour with Via Bike Scenic Tours on an 8-day ride along the Oregon Coast and up to Crater Lake. My son, Jeff, is the founder of this company. We were far away from the coast today on a beautiful loop from Cottage Grove that circumvented Dorena Lake.

The first half of the ride was on a bicycle trail that followed an old railroad line. It was fairly flat with a gentle rise up to the dam that created the lake. It wandered through heavy fir and alder forests. We saw many other recreational cyclists along the way. They ranged from old like me to very young like my grandchildren were 10 years ago.

When we reached the end of the trail, we retraced our route for a couple miles and then took a main road to cycle back on the other side of the lake. There was only one climb. After reaching the top, we were rewarded with a long fast descent.

The weather was perfect. The sky was clear with only a trace of smoke from the many west coast fires. Temperatures ranged from the low 70s to the low 80s.

The four covered bridges that we saw were not on the heavily traveled roads. Three of them were blocked off from through traffic.

Appropriately, dinner tonight was at Stacy's Covered Bridge Cafe. Salmon and shrimp were our orders.