Portland to Eureka 2018

In the little notes that I have, it says that this day was my favorite. Not only was our mileage going down, but it was the least total climning we'd done so far AND the lowest feet climbed at one time (maxing out at just 400 feet). Not to mention, we'd mastered our packing/unpacking routine so things were moving a lot quicker.

We crossed a large bridge shortly after leaving Bullard's Beach. Bridges were the scariest! They were really narrow and had a lot of traffic! We walked across most of them. Once across the bridge we made a few pit stops, one at a Dollar General to stock up on super glue and a second at this jam shop!

We bought a jar of jam here that we used for pb&j's for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the morning was pretty chill. The overcast weather kept us cool and we very much appreciated the flat ride.

We stopped at a small barbeque restaurant for lunch. It was pretty much our only option. We hadn't seen any other places to eat for hours and we were running on fumes - so we stopped at the first place we saw. It was qutie lucky - if you look up Wild Oaks Grill on Yelp they've got 5 stars. And it is most definitely accurate!

The serving was so large that, even after all the biking, I had leftovers! I can't imagine why'd I'd be back around that area, but if I ever was I would make it a point to stop there to grab another plate! They moved to Gold Beach recently.

After fueling up on brisket, smoked mac and cheese, tacos, and ribs we rode into the afternoon - on can you believe it, still flat roads. Begin: Pain Train. What is Pain Train you ask? It's when, finally after three days of hills, you hit sweet, flat road. The person leading the train bellows from the front, "PAIN TRAIN!!!!" And then you haul ass for as long as the lead biker, which un fortunately happened to be the strongest biker of the three of us lol. I can still feel the burn.

We ended our pain train about 10 miles later and took a break at this "beach". It was only a short distance more to the campsite from here!

In no time at all, we arrived at the next camp Indian Creek Recrational Park a popular RV campground for fisherman. We were forced to stay at this non hiker biker campground since it was another 30 miles to the next hiker biker camp. If we had chosen to ride to that camp our total distance would be up to 90 miles. We were not down for that.

We had a few chores we wanted to do tonight so we had an early dinner - some takeout from a restaurant just outside the campground.

First chore was to fix my chain. There was a kink in the chain at the lower gears, which made it very annoying and difficult to get into a rhythm riding up the hills.

Second chore, set up tents.

Third chore, do some laundry! Indian Creek RV Park had coin washers and dryers so we were able to give our clothes a good wash. Previously, it had been a challenge since hang drying overnight didn't seem to work out too well. We were often wearing damp clothes the next morning. Access to a dryer was a nice treat.

One of the most memorables things about this camp were the people staying there. There was another girl around our age who also happened to be biking down the coast, she kept mostly to herself. Sometimes I wonder if I couldn've made it by myself. Most times I'm glad I didn't have to find out.

Then there were the fishermen, there were a ton of fishermen there - if you watch the video you'll have no trouble hearing them talk story. One had rigged his pickup truck to support a full power strip and even offered to let us charge our phones and stuff. Another happened to be a frequent visitor to Kona. I think we called him Kona Dick.

Next time, I'll make it a point to take pictures with everyone I meet.

There was also a snack shop that happened to stock chocolate milk so we bought some for dessert! We had treats on treats at this camp! After the treats, it was off to bed. We would be riding into California in the morning!