Here Comes the Sun

And I say it’s alright. So after slogging through the usual Pacific Northwest weather for the past few weeks I was given wonderful news from some fellow Pan-American tourers from France, that in two days time we would have sun for the foreseeable future! That was music to my ears, I really haven’t been able to take many photos due to the constant rainfall, plus my solar panel was not getting recharged pretty much at all. But mainly I was sick of being wet all the time. I made it to the coast and rode south the next day to rest and camp in a state park for two days to let my body rest and recover, still a little weak post flu, and to let my gear dry out. While riding along the 101 between Lincoln City and Newport I saw an “Adopt a Highway” sign that stated this stretch was adopted by “The Gambino Family”; I wonder if it’s THAT Gambino Family…

Now that the sun was out regularly I finally got to enjoy the beauty of the Oregon coast! I was told it would be beautiful and I was not disappointed. Hopefully my photos do some semblance of justice to the views I was privileged to see with my own eyes. The diversity of landscapes and micro-climates in Oregon is astounding. I went from lush, nearly temperate rain forests to huge sand dunes stretching for kilometers along the coast. Not gonna lie, I was super stoked to see the dunes, I don’t think I had seen live dunes before this.

There are a few questions I get asked over and over again, and one of them is how much my gear weighs. And until now I haven’t had an answer, one reason was I just never really cared to know. It wasn’t important to me. Another is I’ve never owned a scale. But the day after being asked that by another man I bike by a truck weigh station that was not in use and thought “what the hell, let’s ride over it Yonder”. The scale goes by 50 lb increments so I know that with me on it my Long Haul Trucker and I weigh close to 300 pounds!

On a large and steep climb out of the town of Charleston there were lovely words of encouragement painted on the road: TEAM AVERAGE BELIEVES IN U and WALKING YOUR BIKE IS NOT CHEATING. Thanks kind strangers, I indeed walk my bike on the steepest part. A few days later I was riding south to Brookings, OR and had my first 1000 meter climb day in months. I freaking killed it going up the big and long climb of the day! I felt so accomplished and on the way down I was going 60 km/h and as I rounded the corner at the bottom I had to hit the brakes because of the stupid pretty Oregon coast. I lost all that wonderful momentum cause photography.

Later that night I was writing in my journal and looked up briefly and to my left and saw a beautiful sunset. I dropped my pen mid-sentence and ran and got my camera and then through the woods to get the shots. Only when I got to the cliff I realized I left my camp stove on and water boiling. Oops, I guess this will be a quick photo stop.