Day 4: The Most Beautiful Day
I sit writing this journal entry at the house of a “warm showers” host just outside of Florence, OR. I was planning on making it farther today, but ran into Christopher when eating lunch at Homegrown, a deli in Florence. But before I get to that story, we’ll have to cover the rest of the ride, because it was absolutely beautiful. If you only have one day to do a trip on the Oregon Coast, Yachats to Florence is the way to go!
In the morning I tore down camp and said goodbye to Austen. It was nice having a riding partner for the past two days, but I felt great being on the open road. I especially felt great today, because I knew I’d want to stop a ton. After a quick breakfast at the “Green Salmon” I was off! (Highly recommended. So far Yachats is my favorite city of the trip.)
A very typical beach for this section of the coast! Nice sandy beach with beautiful rock sections.
Cook’s Chasm. A very beautiful cut between the rocks. Waves cane straight into the cut, and got washed around. I could’ve watched for hours.
The blow hole near Cook’s Chasm. Honestly, not as good as the one we saw on Kauai.
This part of the coast was littered with arched bridges like this one. Very cool to bike over and look at.
One of my favorite stops was at the lighthouse seen in the cover photo and below. It was a gorgeous lighthouse, and the NPS volunteer took my picture a couple times. Additionally, I stopped and chatted with a couple (can’t remember their names now, sorry!) and they asked for the blog link. If you’re reading this, thank you! You made my day!
These next images are the bay in front of the lighthouse, which had people surfing in it! That was a blast to watch.
Here’s a happy Mark exploring every single pull off on the route.
And some pictures of a happy bike.
As a final option for a stop along the coast, there was the Sea Cave. A pretty built-up touristy place, it brings you down 200 feet into a sea cave where you can see lots of sea lions, and just be in the sea cave. It cost $14, and I don’t think it was worth it. It was very dark inside (obviously) and the views into space weren’t that great. But here’s some pictures regardless.
Okay, that was pretty cool.
I just thought this was funny. It was plastered all over the elevator. I seriously hope jumping can’t damage this elevator.
Coming into Florence, I realized that was the end of probably the most beautiful section of my trip. I’d definitely come back. Each of those pull outs I could probably spend a day at! Unfortunately, I came into Florence pretty late, as I spent so much time looking at the ocean. (Totally worth it.)
On the way into Florence I saw this, and thought it’d be fun to try, but it was closed :(.
I found a deli in town, got a sandwich, and was looking for a place to eat it, when a voice cried out from the sidewalk “Hey, you on a bicycle tour?” And I met Christopher. Christopher and I chatted for awhile. He said he hosted Hot Showers guests all the time (I should probably get an account) and I’d be welcome to stay with him if I wanted. I thought why not, so took him up on the offer.
Christopher is an interesting guy. He’s ex-air force, and recently separated (although he didn’t seem to want to talk too much about it.) He has two beautiful dogs, one a big puppy the other full grown (Sorry I didn’t get pictures for you, trust me they’re adorable.) And has a very alpha male personality. We talked about politics and dating. His views were far right, and I disagreed with some of his more, what I would consider more conspiracy theory view points. But all in all, a nice chat.
We chatted for awhile while I ate my sandwich, then I went with him to run some chores in town, got dinner, then went to the beach to watch the sunset. And the sunset was magnificent.
Unfortunately, something Christopher ate upset his digestive system, so we had to race back to his house to deal with the issues that results from that, but it was a gorgeous sunset. Kinda like watching the sun disappear into Lake Superior or Lake Michigan.
Tomorrow I may try to push for a 100 mile day. I’m feeling good, and I think most of the riding is inland. Also, I should have a stiff tailwind. That means I’ll have to cut the ATVing :(, but I kinda want to see if I can do it. Tomorrow night again, I may not have service, so it’s totally normal if I don’t post tomorrow! Goodnight all!