What Umpqua?

(Sorry for the delay, couldn't get a solid uplink from last night's campground.  Written up last night.)

First the stats update:

Yesterday  76.47 miles / 8839'

Total          237.18 miles / 24058'

I thought I'd share a bit more about my bike and how touring has been.

For starters, here's the mirror I ended up with.

It took me some serious googling to come across the Ortlieb Ultralite, which one commenter called "The Best Bike Mirror Ever!".  Most mirrors it seems are of three flavors: 1) Bar end mounted (for mountain bikes), 2) STI mounted (for racing bikes), or 3) helmet/eyeglass mounted.  1 and 2 don't work with the Long Haul Trucker because it has bar end shifters, thus no bar ends nor STI system.  3 didn't work because I'm not a dork, at least not that big of one.  It's great because it can mount just about anywhere and had enough degrees for freedom to get into a suitable position for viewing the road behind you.  It's also quite resilient to being banged around, it's taken me a few days to get used to remembering to park it on the right side only.  It's great not to have to look over my shoulder constantly to see what's happening, though we've both gotten pretty good at identifying vehicles strictly based on the sound they make as they approach.

It's been a little while, but I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on the gearing of the bike.  This is probably obvious to some, but for some reason I had it in my head that each front gear corresponded to a distinct range of mechanical advantage.  In other words, I thought I could keep shifting down through every possible gear to get me over a hill, but this doesn't seem to be the case.  The ranges of ratios possible on the 3 front gears definitely overlap, and now I have a good feeling for what's required given the incline and level of effort I'm willing to put out.  

My packing has also improved.  One of the first strategic points is to categorize things based on how upset I would be if they got wet.  On one end of the spectrum would be things like my laptop or cellphone, while on the other I'd have my flip flops.  I have four panniers (and a handle bar bag), but only two pannier rain covers (rear).  I also have two waterproof stuff sacks.  One of the stuff sacks I uses for my sleeping bag and pillow, the other for my "camp clothes", basically stuff I might wear to bed.  Since I'm extra paranoid about a dry sleeping bag, that goes in a rear pannier (since I have rain covers).  I put the dry bag with the clothes in my front pannier since I trust that it will keep water out, but wouldn't be furious if something were to happen.  

My second strategy is to separate items by function which makes things easy to find and convenient when trying to do something like set up camp.  For example, I keep the tent/footprint/stakes and my sleeping stuff all in one pannier, along with insect repellent since that's what I'm going to need immediately after getting to the campsite.  

The last thing I'll mention about packing is I've been trying to keep more stuff out of the panniers in my cargo net.  I've been using it for stuff that I do not care about getting wet, and also rain accessories, like the pannier covers and my rain shell, for easy access.  Here's a pic of what I mean.

We've also come to appreciate a good road.  Here is an example of a terrible road from this morning.

Notice the shoulder is fine, but it's half loose gravel.  This is both dangerous and annoying.  You really want to ride in the road, but when a car comes you need to swerve back into either the barely clear area just off the road, or the layered gravel and risk a wipeout.  Or you can ride just in the gravel, but this requires a lot more effort.  Todd and I both want to give a big shout to Douglas County, which has the sweetest roads thus far.  

Last but not least, I need to include a picture of my "mojo".  It's like a mascot for you bike, which I read this was essential to any tour.  On the way up with my Mom we stopped for lunch in some random town at the foot of shasta.  I happened by a "strange gifts" shop and found a bucket of old toys.  I picked out a handful for my brother and myself.  Here's the one I ended up choosing for myself.

He's it hanging ten on my fender.

Okay, on to today's ride…

We started out of Newport around 8:30.  We planned for rain and packed accordingly, but it ended up being scattered clouds all day.  We think the good karma from saving the dog has bailed us out on weather thus far.  It was a little tough getting going thanks to last nights festivities, but we were treated lightly with rather flat roads and decent views of the beach.

The first day of the trip we somehow ended up talking about Astoria, and I learned the Goonies was filmed there.  The first stop we made today we ventured out to a lookout and here's what I found.

Apparently someone does these all over the coast.  

We had to cross a pretty cool bridge in Waldport.  Here's the view from the start overlooking the town.

And the interesting supports, it looks like a giant screwed these together.

On the far side of the bridge we got our first glimpse of seals (sea lions?).

They seemed to notice us looking at them and started scampering of.

We picked up sandwiches to-go in Yachats (Yaw-Hots).  This place turned out to be a vegan something or other, I almost ended up with the ToFurkey special on accident.

We then climbed Cape Perpetua.

When we stopped at a Devils Churn a park ranger approached us and started a conversation.  He gave us a recommendation for a lunch stop down the road.  Before leaving I noticed something on the pillar.

Gotta keep my eye out for these things.  We had lunch at Neptune Park, nice and calm with scenic views.

After lunch we plodded along across uninspiring coastline until we hit (I think) the only tunnel we'll have to transit.  These are supposed to be super dangerous, but we didn't actually have anyone pass us on the way through.  The walls were pretty cool inside.

One out we had more climb, but at least a nice view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

And the sea lions below.

There's even a spot where you can take an elevator down to get face to face with them, Todd and Mom went there when he was at U of O.

At the summit, an overlook of the dunes to come.

After descending, we stopped off at the Darlingtonia Botanical Wayside, home to a large collection of pitcher plants.

I thought they just looked weird.

Eventually we entered the dunes.

Unfortunately I was too slow to snap a picture, but we saw these awesome looking dune buggy bus things.  They looked like stretched buggies on huge wheels that could fit 20 people.  I would love to ride in / drive one of those! 

We heard from Todd's buddy last night that Jessie M. Honeyman was a cool park, so we stopped in and climbed a dune.

To be honest I thought it was just ok, but the sand did feel good on bike sore feet.  After that I was hoping for quick 20 miles to camp, but boy did I underestimate the hill to come.  It seemed to go up and up forever.  At least I got a cool picture of some deforested land on its way back.

The other side looked nasty however, completely stripped bare.  I should have got a pic but was too hurried to get to camp.  We dropped back down to sea level to cross the Umpqua River.  We're certainly crossing our fair share of historic bridges.

Reedsport lay on the other side, where we supplied for the night and re-upped on clif bars for tomorrow's ride.  Four hard miles later we finally found the Umpqua River Lighthouse.  A guy on the way in yelled at us while looking at the map that we had to see it because it was the only red lensed lighthouse on the pacific.

Making camp tonight was so much easier than last time, no rain and no wind.

Happy campers all around.

Dinner was gourmet tortellini from the bag and the finest Chianti Safeway had to offer.

After dinner we showered.  Todd beat me to the hot water so I froze my butt of back to camp.

It looking like if we hustle the next two days we may be able to make California by Friday.

Wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement, it means a lot to us!