There comes a time when a parent must eventually release its offspring from its care and encourage the child to adapt, learn and fend for himself. We have a similar relationship with the States of America. We learn a little bit more about ourselves with every moment we spend in each state, which helps us through the next stage of our adventure. This morning was a nervous few hours as we knew that, at 2pm, our lengthy relationship with California would be coming to an end!
We procrastinated this morning, spending more time than usual spreading the butter & jam on our hot English muffins and having a wonderful chat with Susan and Blane, two colleagues whom we met over breakfast. It was 11am when we eventually broke ourselves away from the breakfast room and returned to our room to make final preparations before heading out on the 59-mile ride to Golden Beach, Oregon. As we rolled away from the Hampton Inn at 12:30pm, kitted out in full wet weather gear, including shoe covers, the rain was beginning to subside and the Sun was putting its hat on …hip hip hip hooray! With the sun beating down upon on as we cycled covered head to toe in plastic, along perfectly dry roads, admiring all the fantastic scenery along the final stretches of California, puddles of sweat were slowly building up inside our suits, unable to escape through the elasticated wrist and ankle straps.
Sloshing our way to the Oregon border, we took a few photos, dumb struck by the sheer beauty of the even more stunning scenery. We took a team decision to remain in our wet weather setup as the forecast predicted rain and Sod’s law would prevail if we changed this late in the day. With ¾ of our ride completed, we stopped for lunch at the ‘WhaleHead’ viewpoint at the side of the road in the Samuel H Boardman’s State park. The sun was still shinning as we gazed out across the Pacific Ocean, chatted with another great guy, Ira from Brooklyn and ate cinnamon bread sticks from last night’s Pizza Hut delivery. Before beginning the final ¼ of the ride after lunch, we decided to take off the wet weather gear, releasing enough liquid to raise the sea level by 3cms. Five minutes into enjoying the dry weather conditions … it started to piss it down! “Holy Jenson Button” we cursed, now knowing how Lewis Hamilton must feel when getting weather strategies so wrong, and quickly stopped at the side of the road to put all our wet weather gear back on. Five minutes into feeling happier not being soaked by the torrential rainfall …the rain stopped and the sun came back out …“&*$%!” and “&*$%! Again” screamed Anthony.
Golden Beach, OR couldn’t have arrived soon enough and, fortunately with no headwind, we made it to our hotel (in Curry County) at 6:30pm, found our lovely room with the most awesome view, and sat for while on the porch, glass of wine in hand, watching the sun go down …ahhh!
Dinner was great; fish, rice and vegetables as usual. We’re looking forward to tomorrow, more rain!
fyi – whilst watching NBC 5 News tonight, it was reported that a Mountain Lion is roaming loose is Oregon!
Us x
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