Day 13: The ocean, finally.

Heading to the beach at Nehalem S.P.

If there is one thing we do consistently it's getting out of camp later than all the other cyclists, but we are very ok with that.  Today we found out how much Jet loves the beach.  He ran like a maniac for nearly an hour and by the time we got out of camp it was nearly 1:00pm.  It is kind of crazy to think that we have been traveling along the Pacific Coast cycle route and didn't lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean until nearly week two of our journey. After traveling along the Pacific Ocean for a few days we figured we should finally check it out.  It's big,  it's blue, and it will be our righthand man for the next month or so. We set off for Bay City to stay with another Warm Shower host and not too long after departing Nahalem we ran into 5 other cyclist doing tours into California.  It was so calming to know we weren't doing this alone. For the most part, anytime we'd run into other cyclist they were doing day tours or headed north.  We now officially had a gang! I quickly snapped a picture and the gang was off.  For the next hour or so, we all cycled together, stopping at the same scenic viewpoints until we finally parted ways for the evening.  We arrived at our second Warm Shower host and were greeted by Mark, Kim, and their three dogs.  Like the last Warm Shower couple Mark and Kim were awesome.  Great food straight from their garden, drinks and great company! Kim shared a wonderful bottle of her homemade Mead that can only be described as the essence of purple (it was made by using lavender honey).  We had a blast that night and slept well.

The "mountain" we cycled up yesterday in the rain.

The ever lovely Mark, Kim and their 2 sweet poodles Red and Mook

Jet Loves digging in the sand.

Julie and Jet testing the freezing waters.

The gang.

Looks like we are in for a foggy day on the road.