Summer 1997 - Yukon to California
Journals - 4 August 1997
Day 25
4 August 1997 (sunny; mileage = 52.6; Barview County Park) -- A - Yet
another beautiful, perfect temperature, sunny day. What will we do when it
rains? I'm sure we've forgotten how to put on rain gear. The Ortlieb hasn't
even had a drop of rain on it yet. I'm not complaining, though. It does get
hot when we're going uphill, but it's so nice to be able to see the scenery
instead of clouds. It is cooler in the evening again, now that we're back
on the coast. We had a couple very warm nights in the tent further inland,
but this is nice. We were up close to 6 this morning and spent a little
longer to get going because of talking to our sitemates, but we still left
early. We were riding well. Chris' front derailleur apparently wasn't doing
too well, but we made good time. Chris didn't remember seeing the coast too
much when he rode before, but we saw a lot of beautiful coastline today (no
clouds or fog). We saw several other cyclists, as we do every day, really.
We are on what is labeled the "Oregon Scenic Coast Bike Route," or
something like that. Donna and Tom (last night) had a map of the route that
showed elevations and camping places. There is a decent space for us
usually. It's pretty nice. We went through a tunnel today and there was a
huge bicycle picture with lights. Cyclists push the button to start the
lights flashing and people are supposed to drive 30 mph through the tunnel.
A couple of big vehicles came through and it was still scary. We got to the
top of a big climb and there were lots of pull offs, so we had lunch at one
of them. Very nice. A Canadian couple pedaled up and stopped to talk. They
were doing short days cycling and enjoying the beach and local amenities.
They were having an Oregon-coast vacation via bicycle. We went past the
park they were staying at because it was so early and we'd only gone about
35 or 40 miles. It looked like our next state park opportunity was about
50-60 miles further, but we decided to see what was on the way. We were
pretty down on the state park rip off of yesterday, so maybe a cheap RV
park or an in-the-woods spot (though showers are very welcome after sweaty
hill climbs!). Boy, did we luck on out the campsite! At least, so far it's
really nice. It's a country park place with over 200 sites, but it's not
very full and the sites are sort of carved out of the beach scrubby tree
growth. We found a site without any others very close and the beach is on
the west side of it. Very nice. The water is clear. The beach is clean. Not
many people. There's a jetty on the south side and some big mountain rocks
on the north. We took showers and did laundry and had sun to hang the
clothesline in. We ate a lot of our remaining food and still have a couple
hours of daylight left for just loafing! We may stay here tomorrow, just
because it's so nice. It's hard to imagine anywhere else will be this nice.
Hopefully, something evil doesn't happen tonight to negate all this good
feeling!
![[Bike]](./only2500b.gif)
