Day Two: Kelso to Tillamook

Today I churned out something in the neighborhood of 125 miles as we travelled from Kelso, WA to Tillamook, OR. I started westbound out of Kelso on route 4 to Cathlamet. There I crossed a bridge to Puget Island and caught a small ferry to Oregon. The ferry fit 9 cars and it cost exactly one dollar to walk on with my bike. This was 30 miles in to the route.

Once in Oregon, I saw a “27 miles to Astoria” sign. I headed west on route 30 into the town where Goonies was filmed. I stopped in to Bikes and Beyond for a quick tune-up and stopped by the visitor center for an extra copy of the Oregon Coast Bike Map. My dad and I decided to meet up for lunch somewhere on the 101, south of town. That “somewhere” ended up being a touristy place called “Pirate’s Cove.” Y’arrr!!! I had the deep-fried fisherman’s combo platter – halibut, shrimp and clams, with fries. It was nice to have some non-ride food today after about a gazillion bars yesterday.

Our best guess was that lunched was at mile 70 of my ride and we had 55 miles to go to Tillamook. We stopped at a few viewpoints and took a bunch of pictures, enjoyed the views of the coast … my dad drove ahead to try and find us a deal on a hotel in Tillamook and ended up succeeding, as we have wireless internet and Versus on TV. So we got to watch the sprint finish tonight and will be able to watch Mont Ventoux before I roll out tomorrow, assuming they get to the top early-ish in the morning.

We grabbed dinner at Main Street Pizza in Tillamook and I had an uplifting phone call with Vaibhav. His ankle is feeling a bit better and he and his girlfriend plan to meet me at the campground near Florence! Woohoo!!

Here is the more detailed post, with pictures. Like yesterday, these are all thumbnails. Some are from my phone, some are from my digital camera and some are from my dad’s digital camera. Enjoy!

7:56am: roll out from the Econo Lodge in Kelso

The first chunk of the ride on hwy 4 was on a wide sidewalk. Plenty of posted signs encouraged bicycle riders to use the sidewalk and so I did. No pictures from that part.

8:20am: I finally pull out my camera/phone after the sidewalk ends.

The next 20-ish miles were on a road without much of a shoulder. A fork of the Columbia River was on the left side of the road. At times there was a marsh/pond on the right.

8:37am: Stella! STELLA!!!

8:40am: the main Columbia River comes into sight and it is rather impressive.

8:51am: These guys enforce the center-line rule when you race your bike in Oregon.

For those of you who don’t race bikes – they have a rather strict rule against crossing the yellow line during a race, except at times when they explicitly allow it, like 200m from the finish at certain races. This is because the oncoming lanes are usually open to traffic.

More pictures of the river and the road and the trees and the rocks…

9:38am: I should be able to make the 10am ferry at this point. I was only the slightest bit worried before seeing this.

9:39am: the bridge from mainland Washington to Puget Island

Some views from that bridge:

A bunch of pictures while riding across the island … there were a few sloughs which made me wonder, “how big can a slough be before you have multiple islands.”

9:52am: onto the Wahkiakum Ferry

A bunch of pictures from the ferry

10:17am: the short ride from the ferry dock to the main road went past this creek that looked really cool.

10:17am: 27 miles from the ferry dock to Astoria

10:41am: After one of the bigger climbs of the day, I summit Clatsop Crest

There is a park at Clatsop Crest with RV camping and a viewpoint a few hundred yards up the road

11:34am: I can see the Columbia River through the trees to my right

Nice sign. They must not be talking about me, or it would say “next 754 miles.”

11:47am: I really liked this sign. I figured I’d certainly come up with something cheeky to say about it later. Has anyone ever been robbed at tongue point? Or been forced to make out with somebody? And why is it an industrial area?

11:47am: Yay, Astoria!!!

11:52am: Leif, this one is for you:

Some pictures of the roll-on into Astoria:

The bridge into Astoria from Washington:

I never got welcomed into Oregon when I took the ferry. I probably just missed the sign, but here is one in Astoria instead:

The bridge south of Astoria on Route 101 … this is technically not the Pacific Ocean yet … it is an estuary or maybe a bay, which in the latter case would be part of the ocean, eh?

Sometime around 1:30pm: lunch at Fisherman’s Cove, a few miles north of Seaside:

Around 2:30 or 3pm: viewpoint near Haystack Rock and Cannon Beach:

3:45pm: The Arch Cape Tunnel has a warning/safety light for cyclists. You activate it by pushing this button.

Around 4pm: viewpoint near Manzanita

4:45pm: A few random pictures on the road … I went over this river somewhere between Nehalem and Wheeler

4:55pm: Wheeler

5:13pm: I wonder what kind of crowd they get for Karaoke at the Jetty Fishery

5:15pm: I see this guy walking up the road with a bike that is pulling a cart of some sort. He didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry and said that he didn’t need any help with it, so I rolled on:

More pictures along the road between Wheeler and Rockaway Beach

5:20pm: Rockaway Beach

5:38pm: the road in to Garibaldi

5:40pm: Welcome to Garibaldi. There is a viewpoint on the right just before the city limits. Apparently today was the first day of their annual Garibaldi Days. There were a few tents up in the middle of town and I saw some other cyclists leaving what looked like a street fair of some sort.

Big tower at the southern end of Garibaldi … not sure about its purpose

Looking back at Garibaldi after skirting an inlet

6:08pm: shortly before Tillamook I saw this turn-off for a lovely state park. My mom sometimes calls me “Chis",” dating back to when a friend misspelled my name in a letter twenty years ago … if this is “Kill Chis Park” then I suppose I should keep on riding

I hope that you got a kick out of these two extra-long, extra-detailed posts about the trip. My dad heads back to Seattle tomorrow and he’ll be taking my laptop home with him … so I probably won’t post again until after I return home. I will keep taking pictures and will do a summary post upon my return – or maybe multiple such posts.

Tomorrow the goal is Florence, OR. About 120 miles. Woot!