Friday, July 25, 2008

Finally made it to a computer!

Hey everybody!
As you can see by some previous posts, we made it to my friend Greg Smith's place here by the Bandon golf course. Again, three of us are going a bit slower than we expected due to my knee and because we really want to enjoy the experience...we found that hard to do at 50+miles per day. Now we can stop and smell the roses, have some coffee if we want and actually do laundry! This has made it a much more fullfilling trip for the three of us (Mandy, Mark and myself). We all agreed that we would not shoot for more than 35 miles a day if/when we do another tour.
Brian and Jerry however, have a different motivation...they want to make it to the original destination. I believe they will do that today.
Since I have been sending updates via my cell phone, we have been pretty terse...so let me expand a bit. Overall, we are having a great time. For the most part the weather is grey and chilly, but at times the sun comes out and bakes us when the wind is blocked! We all have wind burn on our faces and the hills are very tough on all of us. For the most part we have room to ride...but at times, there is simply no shoulder at all. We just hope people move over!. We have been buzzed several times by motorhomes and log trucks within a foot from us, but most folks are polite and move over. There seems to be a local joke about screaming at the bikers while driving by to see how much of a reaction they can get out of us. Just remember, Karma is a $#@&!
Oh yeah, we have crossed over at least 3 big bridges and 2 out of the three had really small shoulders. I videotaped my crossing over one and it was fine till I looked in my mirror and saw huge semi's coming behind me...a bit hairy! Good footage though! I'll add it later.
Camping has been fun. We stay at hiker/biker sites and pay $4 a person. It's cool because we typically stay with the same folks we have met from previous days each night. We ran into one family that is traveling on a three person tandem bike! Their son is 7 years old!!! We'll try to get a pic of him tomorrow if we catch back up with them!
We have one more day of riding left to do. We're not sure where we will ultimately end up, but that is OK, we just want to enjoy the ride along the way. I'll do my best to continue to send pics and descriptions along the way.
We do expect Al Eggers to pick us up on Sunday at our final destination somewhere 30-40 miles south of Bandon. Thanks Al!
Oh yeah, we have been reading your comments...keep them coming! Morgan, I saw yours and I hope you are having a great time in Florida. Lisa, we are being safe...thanks for the well wishes!
Eric

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I followed the basic itinerary with stops at the planned camp spots. July 25, Friday, Brian and I rode 50 miles to Harris Beach State Park, 6 miles north of California and about 25 miles from Crescent City. We said our goodbyes to the 2 young men from St Louis, Evan and Jay, Aaron and Sam from Portland, Matt and Ashley from San Luis Obispo, and my new friends, Garry and Corrina Turner from NZ, more about them later...
Saturday morning Brian and I had breakfast in Brookings and then rode 29 miles to meet my son Kevin at the Marina in Crescent City for lunch at The Grotto, the 5 hours home...
Jerry