Day 3: Misery

Day 3: Lincoln City, Oregon  

Distance for the day:  370.8 km

Cumulative distance: 1,157.5 km

Top speed: 111 kph

Moving average:  72  kph

Temperature range:  10.2 -13.0

It was a challenging day. It was raining hard when we got up and didn't let up until we 

Gearing up for departure.

were a half hour out of Lincoln City, and that was for at most, five minutes. Despite wearing rain suits over our motorcycle clothes, including rain covers over my riding gloves, we were both wet. Our feet, our gloves, our chests and our posteriors. It seems this rain gear just wasn't cut out for this kind of rain. Our leather boots are soaked through; I guess that is no surprise. It was ironic that a riding friend of mine this morning posted a message about buying boot covers this past week. In anticipation of the bad riding conditions, we foregoed yet another night of camping and judging by the looks of it, might be for several more days. With this weekend being Memorial Day, we will still likely to be o.k. finding accomodations in this weather.

We left the motel beside Interstate 5 felling satisfied that we had lucked on a budget motel that was amazingly clean and with a super comfortable bed. On the road about 10:20, we had the usual gremlins to dispense within about 20 minutes. Mainly, getting the GPS positioned better so that I could see the dash, understanting what it was trying to tell me and getting our electric vests connected to that we could hopefully stay warm. 

Our first stop was in Raymond, almost at the coast. With the GPS settings set to avoid the interstate highways, especially on a day like to day when we would have been completely sprayed down with water from other vehicles, let alone rain, Nonetheless, we were having trouble making sense of the GPS instructions because we were so close to the interestate that, in a fit of defeat, I said I was just going to jump on the interstate to get us to our turnoff. It couldn't be more than a few km away anyway, so how bad could it get?Fortunately, we didn't have to test it because we found the correct road which bypassed the interestate.

As it turned out, we were actually retracing some steps from the previous day, and this allowed Nan to get this cool shot! a large forest of trees - aspens or poplars - planted for miles in tidy, even rows. It was not clear to us if they had been planted for later
harvesting or by design to satisfy some strange compulsion.

Raymond, an hour out from our prior night's stay, was a welcome relief. We were still dry  at this point but it was clear we were in for a slog.  We were hungry, too, as all we had eaten the day before was the enchilada soup and the salad for lunch, then a bag of peanuts and a can of wine each for dinner. Still a long way to go to lose the sins of our first day! Hope to get that done before the end of the trip! So we each had an omlette for lunch: minimal carbs and loads of protein! (And a cookie for the road. Can't be too pure!)

Meat omlette at the Hungry Heifer

Astoria-Megler Bridge. At the other end,
(5km away) the bridge rises to a huge are with enough room for cargo ships to cross.

It was pretty much just a day of endless riding in the rain. We stopped for gas with about an hour to go and after that, it just couldn't be done soon enough. All we saw was rain and fog. Very little of the coast line, sadly, especially because riding down the coast was one of Nan's requests. Probably the best thing we saw was the Astoria-Megler Bridge where famed Hwy 101 crosses from Washington to Oregon where the Columbia River finds its way into the Pacific Ocean.

Arriving at our destination in Lincoln City, we were thriled to find out accomodation super cute and very quaint. Built in the 1940s, it was set up for families with fire pits, (wood, electric and gas), croquet, even a complimentary s'mores kit in the room. Also very thankful that we had the foresight to book two nights, which will give our gear a chance to dry out.