I Looooove Capes!

Sunday, September 24. Tillamook, OR to Pacific City, OR.

We didn't even put our wheels to the road until 11am this morning, since our ride today would be less than 40 miles. Sunday morning breakfast at the Pancake House was just too inviting; we lingered over coffee and the Sunday Oregonian until the breakfast crowds were long gone.

We chose to take the Three Capes Scenic Route today, and almost immediately found ourselves in the middle of Tillamook's dairyland. These cows are famous--they're the backbone of the Tillamook Dairy cheeses, milk and ice cream. Jersey cows are the overwhelming favorite here, with good reason. Their milk has a much higher buttterfat content than their higher-profile cousins, the Holsteins, and produces better flavored cheese and ice cream.

Just before the Cape Mears State Park is a marker for the lost city of Bay Ocean. In the early 1900's, a Kansas developer came to the Bayocean Peninsula with dreams of creating another Atlantic City (Pacific City, presumably). Several town buildings were erected, residents moved into town, but when a winter storm eroded the foundation of the town's swimming pool, confidence in the foundation of the town itself began to erode. By the 1960's the entire town was washed away.

Even though we're within spitting distance of the ocean, the route begins to climb away from the shore and up into the Coast Range. The peaks of this range are considerably smaller than the Cascades or the Rockies, but the roads here are graded more steeply. As we climbed, I found myself peddaling along in my granny gear, wishing for an even grannier gear. Once we got to the top of the climb at Cape Mears, we descended into the Cape Mears Park to have a look at the Mears Lighthouse and the Octopus Tree (a really old, really huge Sitka Spruce). We'd both been here on a previous trip to the coast, but it seemed like a worthwhile side trip. Just as we were about halfway up the lighthouse staircase, Matthew remembered that he'd left his Camelback at the top of the hill, near the park entrance. We cut short our visit to the park, and were about to make the climb back up the hill when a woman approached Matthew and asked if he'd lost his Camelback. They had seen us come in, and on their way out of the park had noticed the pack. They picked it up and brought it down to the parking area to search for us. "See, there are nice people in the world" was their comment as they handed the pack back to Matthew. If they only knew!

Back on the road, we descended out of the Coast Range and headed to Oceanside and Netarts. Riding along Netarts Bay is beautiful. A picturesque body of water on one side of the road, a rocky mountain on the other. The route along the bay turned back toward the mountains, and we climbed back up over 800 feet to the Cape Lookout State Park. For anyone who's considering this route, I offer the following information. The roads along this part of the route have no shoulders to speak of, although there is a bike lane on the southbound side of the climb up to Cape Lookout State Park. We are riding in the off season, so traffic was generally light and well-behaved. The road surface itself is patchy, and the dappled, shaded sunlight made it difficult to tell where the rough spots were. If you were to add either bad weather or heavy traffic to this mix, I'm not sure you'd have a very enjoyable ride.

Anyway, the climb to Cape Lookout is about 2 miles of climbing, and fortunately for us, we had the bike lane on our side. As we came down the descent, I was surprised to see that the landscape changed from majestic forests to open sand dunes. It was as though we'd been plucked out of Narnia and spit out into the sands of Arabia. And that's when we met the Princess of Wales.

Megan, who is actually from Wales, was making her way up toward Cape Lookout as we descended. I crossed over to her side of the road, astonished that we'd run into at least one more cross-country cyclist. Megan began her journey from Yorktown, VA about the same time that we left Lawrenceville, and she'd made it to Florence, OR, just a few days ago. Her plan is to finish riding in Astoria, then ship her bike back to the UK before heading down to LA for a "proper holiday". She'd thought about touring the US with an RV, but decided she didn't want to spend months watching the road. So she put up her house for rent, quit her job, and found her way to Virginia. She'd only ridden about 200 miles with her bike "Jimmy" before deciding that this was something that she could do. I asked her what she was returning to in October and she replied, "the house is let until June, and of course it's winter in England but summer in New Zealand". That's the spirit! We wished her good luck and continued down the mountain to Pacific City.

The last few miles of the day's trip was on Whiskey Creek Road, a road which is more of the same shoulderless patch job that we'd ridden earlier in the day. Because the road also has a lot of twists and turns, the posted speed limits are 25-35mph. And even though we were having to hunt and peck our way around potholes and patches, the majority of the traffic was patient with us and waited for oncoming traffic to pass them before they passed us. Except for one. There's always one. And this one was a big RV, who honked at me (since I was riding sweep) before angrily passing. Matthew stopped short and turned back around to see what the commotion was all about, and when the RV passed us and we could see a cluster of bicycles clamped on to the back of the vehicle, he lost it. A blue streak came spewing from his mouth as he churned his pedals to catch up with the behemouth. The RV hanked at us again and lumbered out of my view, although Matthew did chase him for a little while longer.

It was just a few more miles to Pacific City, where our accommodations at Cape Kiwandah are a good prep for staying in the Princess room at the Stovall B&B in Lincoln City.

Down pillows? Check. Feathertop bed? Check DVD player? Check. Ocean view? Yes, but only from the balcony. At the B&B, even the bathroom has spectacular ocean views. And here at Cape Kiwanda, the rock feature just off shore is known as "Haystack Rock". Funny, that's what the rock feature at Cannon Beach was called, too. But that one has little rocks all around it called "The Needles". Cape Kiwanda's rock doesn't have any needles. Cape Kiwanda's rock needs a new marketing director.

We crossed the street and headed to the Pelican Pub for dinner. The Pub also houses a microbrewery, apparently good enough to win medals at several beer contests. Matthew sample the Doryman's Dark Ale and pronounced it "pretty good". Also "pretty good" was tonight's sunset, dipping into the ocean and painting the sky with a thin orange line at the horizon.

Tomorrow is our final day of riding, and we'll end our trip (appropriately enough) at Road's End, where the Stovall B&B is located. I guess tomorrow's blog will be coming to you from the hot tub. Check. On the beach. Check.