Day 5 - The White Knuckle Highway (Brandon)

 

Just some fitting product placement in hopes of getting a beer sponsor for our trip.

We got a bit of a late start, enjoying having a real bed for the last time in a while, and making sure all our electronics were charged up for the next few days on the road. Once Hannah got one last picture of us we headed out. Not unlike the last few days, we hit the road surrounded in fog.

Leaving Florence, it was a pretty steady climb up the highway for the first 15 miles or so, the shoulder was decent but the fog still made things dangerous, since visibility was only a few hundred feet. It was when we began our descent into Reedsport that it got really nerve racking. Suddenly, the shoulder began to disappear, and where it still existed it was broken and dangerous to ride on. We were stuck sharing a single lane with large pickup trucks and semi’s, in heavy fog, for the remainder of the route to Reedsport, where we stopped for a snack at a “biker rest stop”.

A patch of dead grass next to the highway.

After a quick stop to use a restroom, the plan was to ride straight to Coos Bay to eat a proper meal and spend some time blogging... until somebody saw signs for a lighthouse just outside Winchester Bay. Once again, getting to this lighthouse required climbing and then descending some really steep hills, that caused some bicycle gear malfunctions for Christi. 😂 At least this time we could see the lighthouse. We had another snack break at the top, then made our way on to Coos Bay. 

Look, it’s a lighthouse!

We still had about 20 miles to go before Coos bay, and then another 10 to the campsite, so we started booking it and were making great time until I got my first flat tire of the trip, like 3 miles outside of Coos bay. 🤬 We were hungry and starting to get tired, so this was not a welcome development. After 30min of roadside tube swapping, slowed by the need to remove my panniers to get the tire off, we were back on the road, with only one giant, fog-encased, Coos Bay bridge between us and food. The bridge was terrifying, and I didn’t get any decent pictures of it, so you’ll have to look at a picture of it on google and imagine it completely shrouded in fog.

Staples don’t belong in bike tires.

We had some pizza and beer at a little shop in Coos Bay, where we were able to plug the IPad in and connect to WiFi to get our blog posts up before continuing on 10 more miles to our campsite at Sunset Bay state park. The beach at this park was beautiful, even with some lingering haze, certainly worth a visit. It was an early night, asleep by 9 in order to get up and log another 57 miles to our next destination. 

Panoramic of Sunset Bay

Cheers!