Pacific Coast Tour – Day 14 – 16; Elma to Cape Disappointment – Washington Coast

Day: 14
July 31, 2021

Distance: 47 miles (518 total)
Elma to Westport

Brought to you by Andrew

It’s the end of day 14 and since we are huddled in our tent in the rain and Angela is trying to get some rest with a small stomach ache I thought I would write this days post for her. So I hope y’all enjoy my writing.

We started off the day with a quick visit to the hotel dryers since our laundry hadn’t quite dried overnight and we had a cloudy day ahead of us, so no real chance to dry anything on the bike. While the laundry tumbled we ate a hearty hotel continental breakfast including everyone’s favorite, waffles! Since we didn’t have a tent or kitchen to pack up we got a good start to our ride leaving around 8am westward towards the coast.

Something had seriously changed in the weather overnight and today was cloudy and cool topping out in the 70s including a mild to strong headwind at times. But we just had to keep reminding ourselves that the headwind is what brought the blessed cool air to replace the oven we were in yesterday.

Pedaling through the first part of our day from Elma to Montesano was pleasant and open, with a slight downhill following the Chehalis River. Across the river we could see the cooling towers of the old Satsop Industrial Park / nuclear power plant. We were also treated to classic Saturday vibes as Elma was hosting a car meet and Montesano was hosting a farmers market, both of which we had to detour around. After making it to Montesano we stopped for second breakfast at Savory Faire as suggested by Tom of Click-Stand, the maker of our kickstand, who you will meet later in the post. After an awesome omelet croissant sandwich we started back on the road, excited for what awaited us in Aberdeen.

But first we had a great little stretch of trail to ride called Preacher’s Slough. We had received intel the day before (From Tom again, what a great guy) that it was totally rideable and not muddy, but there was one downed tree and several stretches of grass encroaching on the trail. Which really just sounded like a great challenge to me! So we took the trail through the slightly overgrown woods, hoisted the 150+lb loaded tandem over a tree, and picked off some grassy hitchhikers before meeting up with our new kickstand…I mean Tom….

Way back in Bellingham we had an ‘incident’ with the kickstand we use for our bike. It’s made by Click-Stand and is basically a very cool tent pole you can lean your bike on. Well our Warm Showers hosts must take very good care of their lawn, because as we set the bike up to give it a quick rinse the foot of our kickstand sank into the lawn and the middle seriously bent…. After a lot of trying and failing to make it work-ish we reached out to Tom at Click-Stand and asked for his suggestions since we were on the road with questionable mail access. After some discussion of logistics, he made up a new kickstand for us and agreed to meet up with us as we rode past his hometown of Aberdeen, WA. So right at the end of the trail, there was Tom with our brand new kickstand to trade for our horribly bent one, and a sleeve splint to use if it happens again! Thanks so much Tom, this tour would be much less fun if I always needed to find a tree to lean our bike on.

After this exciting exchange Tom rode with us through South Aberdeen and we chatted about cool rides we may do in the future. He escorted us to our turn off and left us to our fate of highway shoulder riding, although we did have a small stretch of bike trail right by the very smelly water treatment ponds. After making it upwind of that we stopped at our second empty baseball stadium complex of the trip for our lunch and a stretch.

The ride from there to Westport was mostly uneventful… except that we ticked over 500 miles of riding on this trip! We celebrated with some pictures and cheesy songs before getting back to work on the ride.

When we arrived at Westport (Washington’s First Beach Town) we missed the visitor center’s hours by 15 minutes…so instead we guessed the most popular route and rode our way through a not very hopping little town to the Grey’s Harbor Lighthouse (Washington’s tallest!). Maybe the real part of town was just farther north? Who knows. But the lighthouse was beautiful and we were able to snag an unreserved set of tickets to climb up which is where we first glimpsed the proper Pacific Coast and not just the bits along the Salish Sea.

We navigated our way back to Twin Harbors State Park and found it very full of excited RVers and beachgoers, but no other hiker-bilkers. So off we went to our secluded campsite away from the loud kids. After quickly pitching the tent we went down to the beach and found the dunes covered in mist and fog. But even though we couldn’t see the whole ocean, we knew we had finally made it to the coast! We quickly touched the water with thanks and headed back for dinner before the mist started turning into proper rain. Good thing we dried everything this morning….

Day: 15
August 1, 2021

Distance: 42 miles (560 total)
Westport to Bruceport

(Back to Angela)

We awoke to the tap tap tap that comes with raindrops. Hoping to wait it out we stayed in the tent a while, but the weather had more patience than us I suppose. Luckily the tapping was actually from dripping trees and really it was just a misty drizzle out. Enough to keep everything damp, but not enough to make standing outside uncomfortable.

The misty fog followed us through most of the morning with not much to report other than the occasional view of the ocean.

By the time we got to Raymond, the first town of the day, we were hungry and in need of a bathroom. There was a McDonald’s right off the road so we swung in for fries and ice cream. Since they still don’t offer vegetarian meals (Andrew: seriously guys just sell an Impossible Big Mac or whatever, I’ll buy it.), we stopped at the Thrift Way across the parking lot to finish out our lunch with bread and cheese.

While it was still cold (60F) the rest of the day, the mist did eventually let up around lunch. Note, the cold is much preferred to the heat of two days ago!

Our ride was almost entirely flat today, until the very end, we had a pretty steep climb into our campground, Bruceport County Park. The campground is much quieter today, with occasional views of the bay through the trees.

Day: 16
August 2, 2021

Distance: 43 miles (603 total)
Bruceport to Cape Disappointment

It was another cold overcast morning today, but at least this time there wasn’t any mist. Don’t get me wrong, we much prefer the cold to the hot, but those downhill cold winds will really wake you up.

The scenery in the morning was mostly forested which was a nice way to say goodbye to the “evergreen state” since today is our last full day in Washington.

Nothing really exciting to share from the ride today. It was mostly meditative riding and a fairly flat, fast, and easy day until we hit Long Beach traffic and winds. The town of Long Beach is super cute, and it was really hopping as we rode the mile plus out of our way in strong headwinds to see it (but mostly we rode through town to see the world’s largest frying pan). The town also has a really nice paved trail through the sand dunes called the Discovery Trail that took us South of town to the North Head Lighthouse. It was unbearably windy at the cliff edge where the light house stands.

Just South of the North Head Lighthouse is Cape Disappointment State Park, where we’re camping tonight. Since we got here pretty early we were able to take a short hike out to the Lewis and Clark interpretive center, which had an excellent view of the currently closed Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and not currently closed Oregon! They let us wander the exhibit for free since we got there 10 min before closing. Both Andrew and I spent too much of our precious 10 min reading journal entries at the start when we could’ve been playing with prisms and other interactive exhibits!

We hit the infamous Astoria bridge tomorrow. In planning, we thought about crossing it today for a half a second but the bridge is known for traffic and crosswinds. With 6 mph vs 16 mph winds morning vs afternoon, and experience telling us traffic is lighter in the morning we opted to save the bridge for tomorrow. So Oregon tomorrow! With all our detours /double backs across Washington we’re excited to finally make it to another state!

Since we’re wrapping up Washington, I wanted to include our daily spending average: $81.43

No major bike maintenance issues, 1 hotel, 3 warm showers, 11 campsites, and a stay with family. That also includes the train to Seattle and 6 ferry rides. Since our goal was $120/day I’d say we’re doing pretty good.

By the numbers so far:

2 seals

12+ bald eagles

2 porpoise groups

0 whales

3 activily pooping deer

5 light houses

4 outlets used

14 chain drops

1 crash

8 showers each

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