Day 1 - The Journey Begins (Brandon)

 

A smoky start in Astoria

September 9th, 2020

We started our trek with a late morning drive out HWY 30 to Astoria. After a windstorm Monday and Tuesday, fires were burning in nearly every corner of Oregon, including one in the middle of our 3rd day of riding, but we’ll get to that later. This was day one, and aside from some thick air and 90 degree temps we were excited to get going.

A long bridge to get the ride started, it had plenty of shoulder space, but it was full of debris.

We had 40 miles of riding, in rare 90 degree Oregon coast weather, before we got to our destination at Nehalem Bay State Park. The smoke cleared out between Warrenton and Seaside, and it was clear skies the rest of the day. We stopped in Seaside for a beer and some Queso at Dundee’s bar and grill. It was a nice, air conditioned, break from the riding... and the beer was needed.

No caption required. 😍😋

The death tunnel going uphill out of Seaside... cars are supposed to go 30MPH while we were in there...they didn’t.

After Seaside the real challenge began. There were three 500ft climbs between our beer break and our campsite for the night, we had some work to do! We made one more stop after the first hill, in Cannon Beach to refill our water bottles and grab some Gatorade for our overworked muscles. Once we made it to the top of the hill just before Manzanita we could “kinda” see our destination.

There is an ocean and a beach behind my bicycle in this picture, I swear!

We made it into Nehalem State park just after 5pm to the surprise of our road crew who had just made it to the campsite a few minutes before after some time spent at the local eateries and bars. Hannah, Davita, Maya, and their dogs were all there to greet us, unfortunately we got there too soon for them to have time to set up our tent for us. 😟 Christi will do a post to fill in the nights activities, but there were a couple more beers and some beach relaxation before an early bedtime to get on the road at first light, for our 60 mile day 2.

My new best friend Sadie, Maya’s sweetheart of a pup. 😍