Day 7: Sue-meg State Park

 Distance traveled: 310.8 km

Cumulative distance: 1989.1 km

Maximum speed: 123 kph ("freeway")

Moving average: 73 kph

Temperature range:  16.2 - 25.2

I was up from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. listening to my next door neighbour’s dog crying her eyes out. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, but how is it that the dog’s parents couldn’t hear her yet REST of the campground could. But I did go back to sleep and woke up after 7. I took my time to get organized,

after all, it wasn’t raining so why the rush? I draped the fly over some bushes and stood the tent on its end with the side panels open to get some air through, and everything else was draped over the picnic table. It took about three hours for things to be dry enough to pack up, which was helped by the sun coming through the thick Douglas firs behind me.

Scenery wasn’t quite as good today; it seems like the Hwy 101 sweet spot is between Fort Stevens and Charleston. Maybe make a note of that if you think you might come down here. Nonetheless, it was still worthy, especially at lunch time when I broke down for an all-American breakfast: BELGIAN waffle with eggs, bacon and syrup. In a classic all-American diner that included a counter. After I ate, I spent a long time on the phone ordering a mirror for the bike and sorting out a destination for tonight. So long in fact, the waitresses, only slightly older than my mother, thought I was moving in with them. But I got a mirror ordered and so now I am making a side trip through 

Sacramento, and I determined a destination for the night. Sadly, California state campgrounds do not allow same-day or even next day reservations. They don’t care that I am riding a motorcycle and don’t know up from down, right from wrong or what is going to happen over the next few hours let alone days.

One spectacular scene today was driving through the redwood forest. I realize this is lame talk about something and not have a picture but it comes with the territory on this trip. The only photos of the redwoods I managed were with the GoPro camera on top of my helmet and I need stronger cell service to get those pictures. The road is twisty but the forest is so thick and the trees so tall I needed to turn on the high beam on the bike to help me see. Because I was wearing sun glasses. I need to look cool going through the forest. But it was dark in there. 

I found the campground, which is one of several in the Sue-meg state park. When I pulled up to the gate, I asked the attendant "who was Sue Meg?" She told me it is a Yurok (local First Nation) word for “always there”. 

There is a bit of the funky chicken for picking a camp spot. They wouldn’t let me make a reservation, so I had to take a plasticized sheet showing all of the four (six?) campgrounds with a green highlighter indicating which spots were open. My job, while holding the card, was to ride around and pick THREE tent sites because other people were doing the same thing and somebody else might pick the spot that I pick before I get back. I only dropped the card one time, and had to find a level spot to park where the bike would lean sufficiently in the correct direction, then run back and retrieve the card. I picked a long, narrow deep camp site so that in the morning, the sun should shine in and help me dry my stuff if there is a lot of dew, though it seems drier here than the other places I have camped on this trip. Mainly because it is not raining.

I actually wanted this particular campground because it was the closest to the beach however, when I went for a walk thinking I would visit the beach, I discovered I would need to take a couple of days to include that in my itinerary because I am 50 vertical metres above the beach but the view is spectacular. I sent this picture to Nan and she asked me if that was the view from my tent site. Sadly, no it is not but if it was, I would stay an extra day.

Agate Beach.

One other thing: I was warned that there are both bears AND cougars in the park. There are metal storage bins in each tent site and at the gate, I was told to use mine. I was putting away my dinner items like cooking pot, stove, almonds but wasn't all that fussed as i was talking to Nan on the phone, when I heard a rustle behind me. I just about jumped out of my skin. I struggled to get my headlamp lit and when I did I saw a HUGE mountain lion staring me in the face! It had a bandit mask, dark muzzle, grey features and actually looked kinda cute. I yelled "shoo!" before it made off with my almonds. I saw on one sign around here that said if attacked by a bear or cougar, FIGHT BACK. I'll be more ready next time.

Day 6: Sun Bay State Park, near Charleston, Oregon

 Distance traveled: 410.0 km

Cumulative distance: 1,678.3 km

Maximum speed: 112 kph

Moving average: 65 kph

Temperature range: 15.8 - 21.0

Editor's note: pictures are taking 75 seconds to upload, so I am saving many for better cell service.

Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated! I am simply without cell service! I'm having lunch in Bandon, Oregon. Unfortunately, my computer had.not charged enough to do an upload, so hopefully tonight.  I am keeping it up, though saved on my computer. 

Here are couple of pictures from my phone:

My lunch time view from yesterday.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain pelting the tent. This was at about 5:30 am so I just waited hoping to go back to sleep or for the sun to come out and just warm and dry everything out! Well, none of that happened so as I could hear the campground start to come alive, I decided to treat myself to a shower and put on all fresh clothes for the day!

Despite my best efforts, everything is wet. Some of this is just from striking the tent but I just could not manage to keep anything dry, even though the inside of the tent was relatively dry. The tent, fly, groundsheet (which was now covered in sandy mud) all weighed an extra 10 kilos (22 pounds). Since I had a water tap at my tent site, I tried washing some of the sand off but I didn’t have enough hands to make it work. Where is a pillion when you need one?

Since I did not bother with doing a tidy fold of the tent gear, I was packed and rolling out of my tent site, dressed in my rain gear at the princely hour of 8:15. It must be some kind of record.  I rode through Loop C to say goodbye to Peter  and looked for what I thought might be his van but there was no sign of life. How civilized.

Rather than hit the highway right away, I rode around the park for nearly an hour looking at some of the sights. There were some old bunkers from WW II and as well, some artillery including deactivated ordinance but some of this stuff was inaccessible due to road construction.

Given that I was going so early, I resolved to stop at the first drive-through espresso bar I saw, which happened to be about 9:30. Drive-through espresso bars are very common down here. I couldn’t actually drive through because I wouldn’t be able to hold a latte while driving so I ended up walking to the window. I also ended up spending an hour messaging back and forth with a person back home who wanted to buy my wine shipping containers, which I had posted on Facebook Marketplace, in exchange for a donation to the women’s shelter. Nan will be handling that back home.

What yesterday lacked in view was more than redeemed today. It just got better and better as the day wore on. When I post this and actually see the pictures, I think I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

At one point, there was a side road between Hwy 101 and the ocean and on a lark, I went down it as it did not say “dead end” so I figured it would have to join the highway again at some point. The road led to more spectacular views, perhaps missed by those on the highway, and then turned into a one way road. I stopped at a viewpoint and was chatting to a gal from Kentucky and I told her I expected to be down there next year. We talked about what was good about Kentucky and she said the camping is great, horse farms, flowers in the spring and the Appalachians. She then said just the education is bad.

I stopped in Lincoln City for lunch when I saw a place called Kyllio’s Seafood Bar. I figured I better eat some seafood while I am on the coast so I ordered the Dungeness linguini. I somehow overlooked that it would come in a litre quart of whipping cream. There was also some tiny green flecks in it. I think they might have been broccoli. I still ate it.

The restaurant had a pretty good beach view so after eating, I took some time to look for a destination for the night and ended up booking the Sun Bay campground. With the knowledge in hand that I could take as long as I wanted without worrying about being homeless, I made a lazy effort and stopped at multiple viewpoints to take in the gaze and maybe some pictures. I can tell you that I missed photographing millions of beautiful vistas simply because there was no safe place to stop or I was too busy with the road. But it would be worthwhile doing this trip a few times and maybe more slowly. I saw numerous people riding bicycles with packs on them and as well, I saw a total of three people walking with backpacks on the highway. That’s dedication.

I also crossed over a spectacular bridge coming into this town and so I was determined I would try to find a spot that I could photograph it. I ended up above the airport looking over the bay with the bridge as well as another bridge that had a centre-swivel to allow boats through. I suspect this was a rail bridge. I had never actually seen one of these but I remember as a tyke 60 years ago that I had a toy train set with such a bridge on a swivel.

When I passed through the last city before my camping destination, I thought I might look for

something green to eat so I stopped in at Safeway and grabbed an endive salad for dinner. I didn’t need much because I still have a lump in my stomach from lunch but I thought maybe some type of vegetable might be good.

I had set my GPS to find the campground and I was a little surprised when it took me well past Charlston until it told me as I was at my destination when in fact, I was not. This was a somewhat rude awakening, so I pulled over and looked at my phone, which initially said “no service” However, after a minute that rectified itself and I was able to determine that the campground was on the correct road but Garmin had just misplaced it by a couple of kilometres.

Unbelievably, I rolled into my tent site at exactly 7:00 pm, a total of nearly 11 hours on the road. I knew my camping gear was going to be wet but I underestimated what it was going to take to dry. It was sopping. I should have opened it up and towed it behind me like a parasail. Iput all the poles in the tent so that it would be expanded as much as possible and waved it through the air like some big balloon and though I suspect it helped, the inside was nowhere near dry. I didn’t care so much about the fly since it should not touch the tent, if I do a good job getting it tight.