Turns out Doug and both his parents showed up in Astoria last night probably to make sure he was in good hands! Had met his Mom before years ago when Doug and I were in school in CT though hadn't met his dad. His mom had been following my blog and thoroughly enjoyed it-as everyone should!
Through a suggestion by the hotel, told to head to the Silver Salmon for the best seafood in town. Fabulous food and Doug's dad ordered Sturgeon which no one had ever tried. Huge fish that comes right out of the Columbia river. Actually tasted like chicken! His parents took off shortly after dinner whereas Doug and I went out to pick up a 6 pack of microbrew before heading back to the hotel to catch up.
Woke up to fairly overcast skies this morning, tried to fill up on the hotel breakfast and got a later than desired start to the day at about 930.
The 4 mile bridge into Washington was the very first thing we would hit to start the day. Impressive and a little challenging since we has some decent crosswinds to contend with.
Stopped to take some pics of the state sign and joined up with Pete, Salt Lake City native who was on his way to Alaska. Ended up pedaling with him up the 101 for the next 45 miles.
Reached the town of Raymond after 50 miles where Pete was calling it a day. Great guy and amazing how the miles peel off when you are talking the whole time about our experiences on the open road. Before he departed though we hit up a pizza place for lunch since Doug and I were just famished. Turned out to be not such a great move since we wanted to get some 20 miles more up the road and we were yawning the whole time with all the carbs we had consumed!Worse, we had flat terrain all morning and for the rest of the day were some good rollers. 17 miles up the road there was a town called Artic on the map but talking to the locals, all that existed was a tavern. Important though a tavern is to have at the end of a tough day, we were hoping for some camping options. So we thought we would check it out and see how we feel once we got there. A further 8 miles there were camping options if we felt up to it.
Got to Artic where there was a tavern and RV park. Walked into the old cedar-clad bar with peanut shells all over the floor and standing in a circle chatting away were a bunch of guys all outfitted with steel suspenders covered in mud and dirt! Obviously we were in logger country.
Needless to say we were feeling just a tad bit out of place walking in with tight spandex shorts. Before we got the thought of walking back straight out of there fast they turned around and asked how our trip was going and where we were headed, etc. Told us we could stay next door at the RV park and ended up having a really cool night with this logging group. Bought beers for us and just shot the bull for hours. We both just sat there smiling and laughing at our good luck finding this place! We were not in any mood to ride any longer since it was prety cold and had some rain earlier. Doug's previous best was 35 miles and though could have gone even farther wasn't happy about it.
Back in the RV park got ourselves a well deserved shower and we bought some wood for the first campfire of this trip. The tavern sold us some beer and ended the evening very content!
It was great to have him join me on the last leg. I had been writing about how great it is to meet all these great folks in SMALLTOWN, USA along the way and with these characters, got to experience it first hand.
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