Day 24 - From Fort Stevens State Park to Nehalem Bay state park

Day 24 (May 28^th)

Here's a picture of our campsite in the morning

Our campsite

The tarp over the camper succeeded in keeping Sharon dry - another problem worked around.  While setting up for the ride I ended up in a fairly long conversation with a couple of the kids from neighboring campsites.  They were really interested in the bike and how it works.  The fairing, especially got a lot of interest.

After heading out of camp, I made my way to 101 south, and pedaled my way down to Seaside.  Sharon and I met at the beach on the north end of the promenade, where we had a couple of fun signs:

Fun Sign #1

Fun Sign #2

I headed down the promenade, where I ran into a father and daughter team who are riding part of the Lewis and Clark trail (I think) - they're keeping track of it on Crazy Guy on a Bike, but I haven't found their trip reports yet.

The father/daughter team on the Lewis & Clark trail

I also got to stop and talk to a few people about the bike and the trip.  It's fun when that happens.

I went back to 101 and over a decent sized hill.  At the top of the hill was a historical marker:

Historical marker on 101

From here, I cruised downhill and picked up some good speed right before heading off of 101 and into Cannon Beach.  On the way into Cannon beach, there were a couple of fun places,including this kite shop:

Kite shop on the way into Cannon Beach

 And then I passed this "sculpture"

This caught my eye too

The views in Cannon Beach are truly spectacular:

Viewed from the road in Cannon Beach

From the same place aiming West instead of South

I headed back out of Cannon beach on 101 aiming south.  When I saw this sign, I laughed:

Seems like a good idea to me

Then on 101 there was this tunnel: 

The Tunnel

for some reason I really don't like the idea of riding through a tunnel, so I took a break to examine my maps - somewhere around here there's supposed to be a campground at Oswald West State park, but I couldn't tell from the map which side of the tunnel the entrance was on.  The spot that I chose to wait was pretty picturesque in and of itself:

This was the end of the pavement

So I decided to go through the tunnel and check out the next couple of miles to see if I could find this campsite.  On the other side of the tunnel, I went straight up a hill for a mile or two.  According to my map, it's about 500 feet high.  But then I see signs for the state park - at least I'm in the right place.  Coming down the other side of the hill, I see a big parking lot for beach access, then just starting uphill again, there's another parking lot.  I get over there and ... there's no campsite anymore!  They've closed it.  At this point, I am looking at another 600 feet of climb, twilight is approaching and I'm pretty pooped.  So I call in the cavalry, and Sharon comes and picks me up.  We load the bike into the truck and drive about 8 miles to Nehalem Bay state park, where we camp next to a very nice family (who have 4 kids age 2-8).  It's pretty late when we arrive, so the kids aren't a problem - they just went to sleep not long after we arrived.

We cooked up dinner of grilled salmon, which we ate with a baguette, and contemplated the crab that we had on ice - then we decided that crab would make a fine breakfast, packed in the vermin attractors and went to bed.

Distance: about 35 miles riding - due to technical problems, exact info was not recorded.