Day 17: Another day

We say it every night “Tomorrow we are going to wake up early and be on the road by 8am.”  We  even have a daily morning alarm from one of our favorite uncles who thoughtfully has texted us everyday since we left with “ hope your bike ride goes well.”  But for some reason like most days we didn’t leave the Charles G. Washburn until noon.  We explored the beach again, I searched relentlessly for that one intact sand dollar, while Matt and Jet ran in and out of the waves.  After our lips were salty enough to flavor bland soup we decided we should head out.  We were quickly greeted with hills accompanied by steep drop offs and little to no shoulders to bike on.  The scenery was to die for! Seriously, I literally felt as if I was risking my life for one breathtaking view after another.  “The wall” that separated the road from a 500ft drop to the ocean was maybe 2-3ft high at the most. Matt on the other hand, was cycling with one hand on the handle bar while the other was taking every picture imaginable. I guess opposites really do attract. We finally summited this mountain and came upon The World’s Largest Sea Lion Cave.  Excited we hopped off our bikes only to find the sea lions had vacated the caves after the super moon earlier that month.  We snagged some free popcorn on the way out and set off for Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. The road continues to bring us into contact with fairly interesting people.  We stopped at an extremely convenient sourdough bakery to fulfill our multiple days long craving for good bread and salty butter.  In an attempt to enjoy the bread hot and the butter soft we dug in while sitting on the ground, classy.  Just about to depart, we met a young man hitching back and forth between San Francisco and Seattle with nothing but a fiddle.  No sleeping bag, tent, or even extra cloths to speak of.  He had been getting by purely on the kindness of strangers and looked no worse for the ware. He even offered us some of the free barbecue he had just been given in exchange for some music.  The world is pretty crazy sometimes but all in all it is still pretty friendly out there. When we finally made it into the hiker/biker sites at camp which were near capacity and ended up next to someone we had cycled with a week or so earlier while in northern Oregon.  Initially we didn’t even recognize him since he had changed into “civilian” cloths.  It was nice to swap stories and compare notes about the next few days on the rode. Lucky for us this would not be the last time we would run into Robert.

Hanging out on the Beach

An almost whole sand dollar 

One of the few shoulders on the road for a view point.

The two foot wall!