My Bicycle Journey: Blog 15

Okay, so I've slacked off a bit. For those of you who don't know, I made it to SF on July 20th, and have been hanging around wasting time for the last few weeks. My next adventure will start on the 4th, when I'll be flying to Honolulu en route to Maui.

July 12

Today I experienced my first real catastrophe. While I was brushing my teeth the previous evening, I had noticed a sign that warned campers about the resident raccoon population, and suggested putting coolers indoors for the night. I certainly didn't want to have any problems with raccoons, so when I got back to my campsite I loaded all my food into a rear pannier and stowed it in a corner of the shower building. I didn't really think twice about this, as I'd done it multiple times before. However, I did note that the door was propped open, but thought in the back of my mind that the campground host would probably come around later in the evening and close everything up for the night.

Skip ahead to the morning, when the first thing I did upon waking up was to stroll down the the bathroom complex to retrieve my food and make some pancakes. Except my food wasn't there. In the corner where I'd left my pannier, there was nothing. I had a bit of a sinking feeling, but didn't panic. I thought that possibly, the campground hosts had done something with my pannier, and walked up to the campground entrance where their motorhome was located. Unfortunately, they had not seen my pannier, but they were very sympathetic and really seemed more upset about the whole situation than I was. Still fixed on tracking down any information I could, I set out to ask everybody I could in the small campground if they'd seen anything. I wandered around for a good two hours, but nobody had any information.

Time and time again on this trip, I've been amazed at the way God has provided for me, and during the whole experience I was never really that worried, and had full faith that things would work out. And things did work out. Even though I didn't find my pannier, or any trace of it for that matter, I was showered with kindness from many different people and just about ended up with more food than I had started with. Two people invited me into their campsite and fed me me breakfast, and many others donated food items ranging from hot dogs to soy milk. The campground hosts, an elderly couple, remained concerned, and the woman even prepared a care package with all kinds of good food. One of the people who fed me breakfast, and elderly fellow who actually invited me into his motorhome, asked me if I had a way to carry the items I received. I responded by telling him that I wasn't really sure how I was going to hang the stuff off my bike but I was sure I'd figure something out. He said "hold on a minute", and went into a back room. I could hear him digging around, and he emerged with a large sackpack style nylon bag. "Here", he said, "take this". The bag was fairly heavy duty, and I was sure I could tie it to my rack and use it as a fourth pannier.

So my bike was a few pounds lighter as I rode out of the campground, but I was almost glad that someone had stolen from me, as it allowed me to experience even more of God's provision and peoples' kindness.

The talkative guy from Eugene had told me that there was another hiker biker campground 90 or so

miles further south, so I decided I'd just keep an eye on my odometer and stop when I spotted a state park in the vicinity of 90 miles. About all I remember about the riding is that it was beautiful, and that I was happy.

Sure enough, signs for a state park showed up 85 miles or so later, and I crossed my fingers and hoped that they would actually have HB sites. They did, and I dragged my bike up a bit of trail and leaned it against a picnic table. There were a coupe other guys in some of the other sites, and I spent the evening chatting with them. One of them, an older guy, was hiking the pacific trail, and it was interesting hearing stories from the perspective of someone on foot. Another one of them had been riding to Portland, but had hurt his knee and was going to be picked up in a few hours. That left Josiah, a college student from Florida who was taking a bit of his summer to ride from Portland to SanFran. After we had talked for a bit, I decided to cook a few hot dogs for supper. However, I realized my catsup had been in the stolen pannier, and promptly set about begging some more from the inhabitants of the regular campsites. I quickly found a couple who was traveling on an old BMW motorcycle with a sidecar. They not only have me a few ketchup packets, but invited me back for a glass of wine when I had finished my supper. I don't need a whole lot of persuading when it comes to meeting new people, and headed back their campsite an hour or so later. We exchanged our stories and plans, and I was a bit surprised at the magnitude of what they were doing.

They had lived in SF for the past 6 years or so, where the guy, Matt, had worked for a law firm. It sounded like it was a pretty crazy job though, and he was tired of working 100 hour weeks. So, they sold and gave away everything they owned except for the motorbike, and had set out to travel until either the money ran out or they were tired of it. Basically, they put everything they had left onto three wheels and set out to see this side of the world, from the arctic circle to Argentina.

As I prepared to make my way back to my campsite, Matt said "you can have that map by the way", referring the map of California we had been looking at. The timing couldn't have been better, as I would be in California in a few days and didn't really have any sort of plan or route.

After a good day filled with positive interactions, I was ready for bed, and quickly fell asleep under my tarp.

July 13

I had ridden 80+ miles the last two days, and decided to take things a bit easier and head for the town of Brookings, only 50 miles distant. Still mildly disgruntled about having to actually pay for a place to stay the night, I thought I might try to resort to the old trick of staying under a picnic shelter. In between the state park I stayed in and Brookings were the twin cities of North Bend and Coos Bay. The overly talkative guy in Eugene had rambled on for a good 5 minutes about these towns, warning me to be carful in them. He described them as a defective culture, saying, "You know when you hear of someone going crazy and killing his girlfriend and family before committing suicide? Ya, that happened in Coos Bay." I really didn't think the place looked all that bad, but kept an eye on my bike when I stopped for lunch never the less.

I made it into Bandon pretty early compared to the last few days, around 4:00. I noticed a state park just outside of town, and stopped to discover they had hiker/biker, which was good to know, just incase I couldn't find anything in town. I didn't find anything in town. There were a few parks, but none of them had a quality picnic shelter. As I pedaled back to the state park, I grumbled about getting soft and worried about spending too much money. It did end up being a very nice park, with a large HB area.

When I was planning for my trip, I realized that couldn't always count on having a good tree to set up my tarp, and found a collapsable trekking pole that I could use to set up my tarp. During the first bit of my trip, I didn't use the pole at all, and was worried that it was just going to turn out being dead weight. Finally, this campsite didn't have any good way to pitch the tarp, and I used my trekking pole for the first time. With my tarp set up and my dinner eaten, I settled down into my sleeping bag for the night.

July 14

I had been having some trouble with the wind, and had 70 miles or so to ride to Orick, where I had arranged to stay with a couchsurfing host. The wind was a pretty serious disappointment; I had heard from multiple people that the wind pretty much always blew south down the coast and had been looking forward to finally not fighting it.

I suppose it was still better than it had been riding west, but not nearly as good as I'd hoped. Today turned out to be a bit strange, as the headwind I'd had for the first half of the day switched around and pushed me for the last half.

The big event of the day was redwoods. I'd been looking forward to seeing some of the massive trees for the last few days, and almost missed the first one. I was laboring my way up a bit of a climb, and was looking down at the pavement, as I often do when going slowly up hill. After riding along for a few minutes in this fashion, I glanced up and found myself staring at a gigantic redwood. For the next few miles, I craned my neck to see the top of every tree I passed, awestruck with the sight of each one.

Steve, the guy I was staying with, had given me his address, and I had no trouble finding his house in the tiny unincorporated town. He turned out to be quite the character.

As he opened the gate in his 8 foot fence and let me into the yard, I took a minute to survey all the crud that was crammed into the small town lot. There was an old school bus, an old camper, an overgrown garden, some chickens, a goat tied to a tree, and a turbodiesel Mercedes that appeared to be at least 30 years old.

"You'll be staying in the bus" Steve told me, and proceeded to give me the tour, complete with the bus' history. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something like the local school had decided to upgrade their bus (singular), and the bus driver had snatched up the old one to do a road trip to Alaska, but then lost interest in the idea and sold it to Steve for $2500. "It still runs, I think" I was told. The inside had been overhauled for habitation, and had a bed, pair of chairs, and even a stove. There were two doors, but Steve advised me to only use the one that was out of the goat's reach. He also pointed out the 6 foot cannabis plants that where thriving in the garden, saying, "The combination garden is legal, I've got my paperwork."

Later that evening, we, or rather Steve, chatted. He turned out to be quite the interesting guy, and not at all what I would have expected for some old guy living in a small town growing weed. He'd grown up in Southern California, had went to college, and for some reason that I didn't get to, left it all behind and moved into the middle of nowhere. Since then, he looked like he'd adopted the redneck lifestyle pretty comfortably, but with the occasional bit of evidence betraying his former life. For example, sitting on top of an antique radio were an apple laptop and android smartphone, both of which completely clashed with their surroundings. Eventually the conversation turned to the slightly naughty plants he was growing outside, and that's when I learned that Steve was a complete marijuana devotee. He spent the next 20 minutes talking about the benefits of smoking it, and actually seemed to have a pretty good reasons as to why marijuana was God's gift to mankind.

Around 10:30, I managed to tear myself away, and retreated out into the chilly, damp air to spend the rest of the night in the bus.