Day 9

August 18th 2008

75.7 Miles

Thundershowers passed overhead all night long waking me up on several occasions. I was dreading biking today knowing I could expect a day of rain. I checked the report in the morning and decided it would make sense to hang out in the dry of my hotel room until 9 am when the bulk of the bad weather would pass. Even so, I still got wet for the first few miles this morning. Unlike yesterday though, I didn’t mind and was contemplating making up some of my lost mileage from yesterday. I breezed through Seal Rock, Waldport and Yachats in no time.

Seal Rock or rocks?

Yachats...Gesundheit!

The crazy traffic of the weekend had dissappeared and the road conditions were about as good as I could expect. The weather was still cold and foggy when it wasn’t raining however.

done

Just south of Yachats I started the climb to Cape Perpetua. The view from 101 is nice but the real spectacular panoramas are to be had after climbing a ridiculously steep hill to a view point built during the Depression as part of the WPA.

The road to Cape Perpetua

Rocks below Cape Perpetua

done

After the cape the road continued its up and down routine passed all the famous landmarks on the Oregon coast: Heceta Head Lighthouse, Sea Lion Caves, and the Oregon Sand Dunes.

Haceta Head

Soon I was approaching Jessie Honeyman State Park. I was feel great despite the weather and thought I had it in me to push a little a little further. I kept on pedaling and soon found myself climbing over another big hill. I didn’t figure out what it was called but very near the top, it became really cold and think with fog. A really damp fog that got me soaking wet in no time. Of course on the descent, all that moisture I picked up chilled me to the bone. By the time I arrived in Gardiner, I was ready to be done for today. The problem was that there was no where to stay in Gardiner. I set my sites on Reedsport a few miles further south. As I approached town the wet fog settle in again. This time I was almost sure it qualified as rain I began looking for hotel since campgrounds are few and far between in this part of Oregon. I finally bivouacked myself and the cheapest place in town. Still, it did offer wifi for free.

Maury