57.4 mi / 4:11:27 time / 13.6 mph avg. / 2838 ft. climbing
Staying at Jedediah Smith State Park

Woke up to a wet tent again, though this time it must have been actual rain or drizzle, since there were no overhanging trees to blame it on. Ch3ecked in with Mom and Dad at 7am, and then we all went for breakfast at the cafe connected to the RV Park. Everything you need in one place! Never tried the sauna though.

Since we had a sag wagon available with Mom and Dad, we dumped most of our bags on them and headed out in “lightweight” mode for the day. That was good because we had the 2nd biggest hill of the Oregon coast to climb right off the bat, in pretty nasty 51 degree cloudy, misty weather. Even the hostess at breakfast complained how abnormal it was for this time of year; they’d normally be expecting sun now. Oh well, we did pretty well the first few days. I still probably had 20 more pounds than Joel to haul up the hill, but luckily he wasn’t able to drop me as easily this time. Or maybe he just wasn’t trying as hard!

This was easily the most remote day in Oregon, with the 27 mile stretch between Gold Beach and Brookings completely devoid of services and few signs of civilization at all. I’m actually surprised they don’t highlight that fact on the Coast Route Map, because it’s pretty unusual. No problem for us though, since we had Mom’s sweet rolls and oatmeal cookies to tide us over. The lack of services is counterbalanced by an abundance of viewpoints, most from vantages high above the ocean, including a flat bridge 385 feet above a ravine (the highest in Oregon, in case you were wondering). Happy we didn’t have to descend and climb that hill!

In Brookings we ate lunch at Vista Pub, a place cool enough to live up to their “gastropub” appellation. They only had 4 or 5 sandwiches on the menu, and my pulled pork was awesome. A final clam chowder, and of course a good Oregon beer rounded out a week of great lunches. On the way out of town I stopped at the bike shop to pick up some Kool Stop brake pads to replace my crappy Shimanos, while Joel tried to figure out a way to hold a cup of hot coffee in his water bottle cage.

Just before we reached the California border, the familiar black Chevy flew by with Mom’s arm waving out the window. It’s funny how the one and only border crossing I’ll do in this trip happened 7 days in, after our East Coast trip where Dennis and I crossed a state border or two every day. I guess it saves time with fewer photo setups required!

South of Brookings and in California, we were mostly on alternate roads generally paralleling 101, and that was made possible by a rare flat area that appeared between the mountains and the sea, filled with farms and easter lilies and cattle (California apparently upends Wisconsin’s “Dairy State” claim by fighting the battle right from their borders on in). We even hit a section that could have been a Midwestern farm town, if not for the mountain backdrop.

And it turns out the foothills of those mountains are covered in towering redwood trees, another thing you don’t see much in the Midwest, or anywhere else in the whole world. We did our final 7 miles on a road where their great boles rose right from the road’s edge (thanks for not cutting them down just to build a dumb road, CA DOT!), and where they made a line of telephone poles look like matchsticks.

Then we made a turn into the state park, rolled to the campsite Mom and Dad had already gotten to share with us, and that was the first end: Joel had successfully completed his 385 mile portion of the journey. Going in, I knew that my brother and I would get along well on the road together, but it turned out even better than that, it was pretty much the easiest thing in the world (if you ignore the bike riding part of it at least!) We were totally in-sync on both the riding and everything else (several times we even ordered the exact same thing for lunch or dinner). He can totally do this bike touring thing, and probably even stick with me through the giant mountains coming up in California; all he’d have to do is get up earlier and settle for less-luxurious lunches. 🙂 In the way that we referred to the two Canadian bike tourers as “The Canadians”, we were known to at least one member of the Coast Caravan as “The Brothers”. I must say I liked the sound of that.

Just after we arrived, the clouds did their magic 4pm disappearing act they had done a couple days earlier, which was perfect timing for the hike the whole family did down across the Smith River on a footbridge and then through a grove of some of the most majestic trees I can imagine. Joel had been here with his family a year ago, and I can completely understand why he wanted to return and made it the endpoint of his journey. The short trail displays a large variety of Coast Redwoods in all stages off their life cycle, from the rail-thin, ramrod-straight 30-foot saplings to the fallen behemoths, and the atmosphere was powerful. The only thing I missed was seeing Han Solo and the Ewoks. Oh, ok, that might have killed the peaceful vibe, so it’s probably okay that they were fighting Stormtroopers somewhere else today.

Mom and Dad whipped up a multi-course dinner of hamburgers, potatoes, and peas, and then around the campfire Joel and I taught them about s’mores with our leftover ingredients, and they broke out the Cherry Garcia they had picked up. Yum. For the record, except for lunch on the first day, Joel and I managed to have beer at every non-breakfast meal. And of course good stuff too. Woo hoo!

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