Thursday, August 29, 2013

Day 11: It's been nice Washington but we're seeing Oregon now.

The smallest little ferry that held only 6 or 7 cars.
 Our relationship with Washington was short and sweet but the time has come for us to press on and leave the Evergreen state behind us.  We boarded the Puget Island ferry and were Oregon bound.  Oregon decided to test our determination early as we turned west onto highway 30.  It was not more than a mile before the road headed into the hills that never seemed to stop.  We climbed 865ft, on a narrow, busy road. Cars, RV's and Semi's passed us going 70+mph making highway 30 our least favorite road. After a few miles of a slow going continuous hill, we arrived at a beautiful overlook and gave Washington one final goodbye.  What goes up must come down, and down we went.  The rest of the day was more or less flat and easy and we took full advantage of it and cruised lazily into Astoria in the early afternoon.  Then as usual, we prioritized finding food before shelter and it came back to bite us later in the evening.  We went straight to the farmer's market to refill the tanks and it rewarded us in many ways.  We found a delicious food trailer that rewarded us with one amazing falafel.  After eating, we were sitting on the curb as the market closed around us when the owner of Falafel walked over gave us nearly a dozen hand made pieces of pita bread. Tonight we feast!!! And did we ever. We stopped at Safeway and got a family sized tub of hummus and it was a party.

One state down, two to go.

Blackberries, our favorite roadside snack.

 So where to sleep?  After eating and rubbing elbows with the locals it was darn near 7pm and our options were shrinking.  There was camping 17 miles out of Astoria. Our bellies were to full and our legs to cold to commit to something like that.  No warm showers host to speak of.  After making a few stops and calls,  we were able to find one of the few motels that allow dogs and also had availability.  Not really what we had in mind but we learned a valuable lesson, shelter then food and if the weather is nice, keep on truckin' because tomorrow might not turn out that way.

Our final goodbye to Washington, by bike at least.

My worst nightmare!



If you are on the Oregon coast and see this trailer stop and eat
you will not regret it.
 
We got pita bread for days.
Julie being Julie.




3 comments:

  1. What an adventure. So proud of you two and Jet
    Stay warm and dry. Keep away from the bears, you are both so sweet I'm sure they would be attracted to you.
    Love you
    Mimi

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  2. You both just keep on jettin down the road. Looks like your having fun and also sounds exhausting. Let me know if things are tough finding a place to bed down and I will see if I can arrange a place for you with people in the church that would be willing to let you pitch a tent in the yard again. :) :) :) Love ya, Dad Swallow

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  3. Have you met a lot of folks and have you been able to share much about Pink Frame of mind with people and your cause. Have you had much response to your Hevi-Beads text codes. These other shirts came in and the yellow ones look nice. Mimi is going to get them to you.

    Dad Swallow

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