Aloha from Seaside Oregon,
After our longest day in the saddle, about 80 miles, we decided to hunker down in the woods about 15 miles north of the Oregon border. We camped next to a quiet little creek where we all enjoyed a cold but refreshing dip. The night ended with some veggie sandwiches and a can of baked beans. Now thats livin!
Sunday, we packed up our things and headed into Oregon over the dreaded Astoria bridge, which instead turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They are currently in the middle of a three year project renovating the Astoria bridge so traffic was restricted to one lane of traffic at each end. We pulled in behind a line of cars and had the entire bridge to ourselves for most of the 7km, until the climb up the other side into Oregon. Riding against two lanes of traffic and in between bridge construction up a steep incline can be difficult. After working our way through that mess we were in Astoria, Oregon. We quickly cruised through there as were were in a hurry to get to Seaside. Once getting to Seaside we realized that Tavin had been pulling the trailer for who knows how long with a flat tire. I told him it looked a little flat and he said that makes sense it seemed a little harder. We pulled into a local bike shop and decided that the stock tires had to go in favor a a smoother rolling FREAKY X tire made by Redline. The difference is huge, and is pulled much easier.
We then headed out to search for a place to stay and stopped by the local surf shop, Cleanline (http://www.cleanlinesurf.com/). While there we checked out some of Patagonia's gear and also Lib Techs new surfboards and they are CRAZY (and earth friendly too)!!! (http://www.libtechwaterboarding.com/waterboards/). That will be one of my next buys for sure. With no real leads in finding a campsite we headed down a dead end road and when the county road ended, so did our hope of finding a place to stay out in the wild. We felt a little stuck and as a last resort Sean created a profile on WarmShowers.com and within 2 minutes we contacted a man named Neil who lives here in Seaside and said 'Come on over boys.' This man is truly one of the kindest and trusting people we have met on the trip. He provided us with the option of coming and going and staying as long as we please. He also gave us a chance to do our laundry, take a shower, and sleep in some beds. Neil is the man, and as we huddled in his kitchen last night over pizza and beer he shared with us some amazing stories of his trips to over 60 countries.
After waking up this morning and having a quick conversation with Neil he showed us where the keys were and said he was headed to Astoria for breakfast with a friend. He left three twenty something year old kids that he met the night before through a phone call hang around his house when he is not even here. When do you meet people like that? Never, and we feel very thankful to have connected with him.
Right now were slowly packing up our things, taking hot showers, and drinking coffee so we can hopefully get to Tillamook today. We can't wait to get down on some ice cream and cheese curds straight from the source. Until next time.
The Crew
SWOO, BMAX, TCope
*More pictures are on the way from our entire trip. Stay tuned.
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