day6 120km 5:51 neskowin bay

Woke up to foggy low clouds and no dew on the groung which is a first for this trip. Rolled out at 9:30 wearing the same gear as yesterday and climbed up seven devils rode. I freakin love this rode!!! It was amazing. The landscape reminded me when your at 'top of the world' at the stottlemeyer trails. Very few cars with some rollers and good pavement and then painted on the road before an awesome descent is ' here comes the fun part'. oh, yes. it was fun. leaning into corners going 45kph and taking the whole lane. it was just amazing. If anyone gets the chance do this section its unbelieveable. I took my phone out to call my lovely mom while I was riding and I fumbled it and dropped it. It landed on my front right pannier, so I slowed down and then it dropped down and my front tire ran right over it and it exploded into a bunch of pieces. I was mad for about 5 seconds and then just started laughing. I saved the sim card though. I caught up to matt and we met a guy named 'dog' at a little store and he told us a good place to eat. Matt and I cooked up some soup for dinner and are stealth camping at a state park. My legs felt good today, but I think it was because of a tailwind and very few hills. It was beautfull all day and I should be in california tomorrow.

day5 89km 4:51 charleston

The three of us ate breakfast this morning and then we all kind of rolled out. I rode with knee and arm warmers today and got a late start 10:30. I almost passed matt and mitch who had ate at a burrito stand just down the road from where I had my lunch. I stopped and put on some sunscreen and chatted a bit. I ran into mitch again after I filled my bottles at a dune buggy rental place. I rode by a lot of sand dunes today right by the ocean. I had just passed through a town and a lady sitting in the pasenger side of a truck was nice enough to tell me 'there is a bike lane right there.' I had been riding just to the inside of the white line. Oh, really. I didn't notice the bike lane which was covered in gravel. glass and broken pavement. ugh. Sometimes I hate motorists. I stopped in charleston to ask for directions and some guy who reminded me of rob potts asked me a bunch of questions about my trip and was really excited for me. Anyway had some salami, a box of ritz crackers and cheese for dinner. I had to be carefull though because there were some crows scoping out my dinner when I went to fill up my bottles.Kind of miss talking to mitch and matt which is kind of wierd because I only knew them for a day and a half. I know its a ways off, but i'm excited and terrified about nevada.

day4 84km 4:12 florence

Woke up and it was cold. My oatmeal lid got knocked off and dumped inside one of my panniers. I stopped at waldorf and used their library to do my last update. It warmed up and got sunny after the library. Was able to see the ocean without any fog or cloud cover finally and it was beautiful. I met a touring rider matt today who was hitting up skateparks all along the coast. He started in victoria b.c. and got snowed on up in washington burr... Dinner was a can of mixed veggies, couscous, an orange, an avacado, string cheese and the remains of a pound of deli ham I bought for lunch. It was so much food that I ate it in two sittings. I got done showering and cleaning my pans and another touring rider had camped next to me. His name was mitch and he is riding a 10 speed! its an old bike. He is headed down to california. We sat around and talked until dark. They both aren't carrying very much compared to me, and matt doesn't even have a tent. We talked about life, our trips, my time in the navy and the responses you get from people after you tell them about your trip. 

response#1- wow, that is so cool. I want to do something like that some day.

response#2- why would you want to do that? be safe. good luck.

even if I explained to person #2 why I am doing it ( even though sometimes I myself don't know). Any answer I gave wouldn't satisfy them. 

day3 81km in 4:26 newport

Woke up and ate some oatmeal. It was very lightly sprinkling and I got drizzled on for a little over an hour, but it stopped just before lunch and it was cloudy for the rest of the day. Took a 1 lane road with a bike path that ran right along the coastline about 4-5 miles and it was awesome. Not a lot of cars and the sun would break through every once in a while and the tops of the waves would sparkle. The descent off it was nice and fun. Did some laundry at a laundromat and met my first eccentric guy who was walking a cross along the side of the highway with a wheel along the base of it.I talked to him for a couple of minutes, but he never answered why he was doing it. He didn't seem to be on anything or 'out there' at all. He wished me good luck and I did the same and I forgot to get his picture. how lame am I. I was debating wether to pick up some groceries or stop for dinner when I saw a little pizza joint and thought about it and ended up turning around and stopping in. I had a white spinach vegan pizza and it was great. One of the owners gave me a free beer off a new keg of rogue (rogue brewery is literally 5 miles away) he had brought in. The other owner told me if I stayed for a while he would give me a ride to south beach state park, so I stuck around to listen to a band that came in and played. A girl came over and asked about my bike and I told her about my trip and we talked for a while about all kinds of things. She also gave me acouple of her favorite book selections. Around 7-8ish I got a ride to the campground down the road and set up my tent in the dark and fell happily asleep.

day2 85km 4:35 pacific city

Not much went on today, I'm still rearranging stuff in my panniers. 2 climbs today and on the second one my mind wasn't doing very well. I ended up going a couple miles farther than I planned so that I could have a campsite with hot showers. There were 3 or 4 black bunnies running around and seagulls flying around the campsite. Had a couple of beers at the pelican bay pub and brewery. It started rainging a couple of minutes after AI got into my tent and I couldn't fall asleep. I don't know if it was from the beers, the sound of the rain on my tent or dreading packinf and eating breakfast in the rain tomorrow.

day 1 4/15 38 miles 4 hrs

Parents were nice enough to wake up super early and drop me off at fort clatsop state park. Its is just south of astoria, Or. I travelled along a nice road that had a decent climb for a little bit and then a nice twisty descent. I was almost into the town of seaside coming off the descent when I heard a rubbing and my back tire was rubbing against my seatstay. My rear quick-release lever had somehow came loose and my rear tire shifted in my dropouts! I had to take all the stuff off my rear rack and then remount the tire in the dropouts. First mechanical issue solved. I stopped in seaside and rolled my bike out to the surf and dipped the back tire in the pacific ocean being careful not to let the water touch my front tire. I have to wait for the atlantic ocean to do that. I took a couple of deep breaths, said a little prayer and walked it back to the bike path. There were about 3-4 little climbs of 200-600 feet and they all felt over 10% even though they were only 3-4%. Even with my rediculously low gearing its tiring to push it up hills. I passed through a tunnel and they had a button to push if you were a cyclist going through to let motorists know that there are bicycles in the tunnel. Any car that passed through sounded like a jet by the time it was right behind you with the acoustics of the tunnel. I also climbed up a road where they were filming a 'boxer films' movie. they had closed down the road to 1 lane and from what I saw of the trailers and whatnot it looked like some type of car chase scene. I spilled my dinner of couscous all over a book I was planning to read, so I ended up eating oatmeal with raisins. Had a free hot shower and only paid $4 for ahiker/biker site at nehalem bay state park.

my stuff

here is a gear list if anyone cares:

tent with rainfly and footprint, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, pocket rocket stove, msr cookset, lighter, spoon, fork, foldable bowl, 2 gas canisters, can opener, headlamp, leatherman, 1 pair city pants, rain pants, 1 pair thermals, t-shirt, 1 pair wicking underwear, 1 pair running shorts, sandels, toiletries kit, medical kit with road rash supplies, random bike stuff ( chain lube, zip ties, bolts, allen keys, spare tubes, ect). chamois cream( for my booty), embrocation ( warming gel), massage cream ( for my poor little leggies) sunglasses, helmet, mountain bike cycling shoes, wool hat, cycling cap, arm warmers, knee warmers, 2 short sleeve jerseys, 2 longsleeve jerseys, 2 longsleeve undershirts, 1 rainproof jacket, 1 rainjacket, 1 shortsleeve base layer, 2 pair cycling shorts, 1 pair cycling tights, 1 pair cycling knickers, 2 pair wool sock liners, 2 pairs wool socks, 3 pairs ankle socks, 1 pair wool gloves, 1 pair wind/waterproof gloves, 1 pair winter gloves, 1 pair short fingered cycling gloves, booties, pepper spray, knife, camera, maps, journal, pen. I'm sure there is more but I don't think it matters.

SHOUT OUT

I wanna say thanks to some people before I begin the journey.

thankyou to mom, dad, my sisters, sarah (for the inspiration), everyone at B.i.cycle tom clune, alex, the saturday morning group dan, dave, greg, greg, ty, chris, and everyone else. Everyone at Poulsbo Running chris, brooke, lynly and the sunday morning trailrunners, ben, allen and the gang, bay street ale house for the yummy beers. john, mickey, brent, morgan, nicky, diane and everyone at kitsap physical therapy. Stephanie who revived my legs all summer and listened to my ramblings. my navy shipmates kev, porno, miles, sam, jared, danny mac, zippo, micah, watanabe, so much ice they yell 'skate dave' williams, mike, chris, ste holly. grandma and grandpa and the whole micheal family, frank and caroline up in canada. sorry if I spelled some names wrong. tomorrow is the grand depart.

if you want to win something run 100 yards. if you want to experience something run a marathon!