It's funny how things just work out sometimes. As I went to bed last night I was debating whether or not I should stay an extra day in Olympic National Park. When I woke up this morning sore and stiff from yesterday's hiking I decided that it was time to pack it up and move on. I was already on Hwy 101 and it was pretty much a straight shot south for the next 1200 miles or so to San Diego. I was planning on staying somewhere in Oregon for the night. I figured that I would just pull up to some beach side motel and get a room for the night. As soon as I hit the Oregon coast I realized what a bad idea this was. Every beach that I passed was packed with people. Every hotel that I passed had a “No Vacancy” sign up. And then it hit me, getting a hotel room on the coast on a Saturday in the middle of August just wasn't going to happen.
My backup plan was to get a campsite somewhere. Even though I had been camping for the last 4 days another night camping didn't sound that bad. I wanted a shower and a place to do my laundry but I didn't really care whether or not those things came with a hotel room. It didn't take long to realize that even my backup plan was not very feasible. Not only were all of the motels full but, of course, so were all of the campgrounds.
I pulled out the map and decided to go with Plan C. Plan C involved taking a detour off of Hwy 101 and shooting out to the city of my birth, Roseburg, Oregon. I figured that if I got away from the beach that I shouldn't have any trouble finding a cheap hotel room. I also thought that it would be neat to spend a night in the town that I was born in and maybe even stop by the Harley dealership for a t-shirt.
Plan C was shaping up nicely until I realized that I wasn't traveling very fast along Hwy 101. Hwy 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway) is a old scenic stretch of highway that runs (mostly) along the coast from Washington to Oregon and passes through a bunch of coastal towns. The fastest posted speed limit is 60 MPH but more often than not you are going closer to 45 or 50 and every time that you pass through a town that drops down to 25 or so. I figured that at my current rate of travel that Plan C would optimistically drop me into Roseburg sometime around 10 PM.
Even though I hate riding at night Plan C was still my best option. I figured that I would just keep riding south until I got to Roseburg or ran into a better option. About 10 miles down the road from where I arrived at the aforementioned decision serendipity struck and I stumbled onto an RV campground. This wasn't the first time that an RV campground had spared me from riding into the wee hours of the morning looking for lodging (I ran into a similar ordeal at the Grand Canyon last year).
Although all of the official tent sites had already been taken, the owner was more than happy to let me pitch my tent on the lawn at the entrance of the park. I couldn't have asked for a better campsite (thus the opening line of this post). The beach and ocean are just across the highway less than a 100 yards away with nothing obstructing my view.
After I got my tent pitched I walked down to the beach and spent some time poking over the rocks in the low tide. The rocks were covered with starfish by the dozens. In the distance there were some seals basking on the rocks. A few minutes later the sun painted the sky orange and red as it tucked itself beneath the ocean. The whole beach experience was definitely the highlight of my day.
Prior to the beach experience I would have said that the highlight of the day was crossing the border from Washington to Oregon. Not that I was particularly happy to leave Washington or to arrive in Oregon, but the traversal of the state border entailed crossing a 3 mile bridge spanning the Columbia river as it dumps into the Pacific. It was a pretty extraordinary experience to ride on a bridge that long. I was tempted to pull over and take some pictures but unfortunately there was not a whole lot of room.
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