Goin' Coastal

Well, I left Crescent City, CA early in the morning with a plan, and figured I'd be in early tonight.  It is now 8:30.

I did get here (east of Portland) a couple hours ago, but it was by no means "early" and I wanted to get the filth and salt spray off the bike now that I'm away from the salty sea for good.  I did that while my pizza delivery was underway, and the pizza won.  It was still warm when I got around to it, though.  And the bottle of beer I've been toting for the last few days had a chance to get nice and cold.  AND, I had a salad, so that counts as a healthy food pyramid dinner.  Right?

It's amazing how different the climate is only a few miles inland. It never got into the 70's all day on the coastal highway, even though I was fortunate enough to finally get some peeks of actual sunlight (and some good photos) today.  I finally got out of California - it took me my whole life to get there, and almost as long to get back out - and I continued up the coast past the Oregon Dunes NRA to Coos Bay, where I turned inland for the last time, along a riverbed very scenic in its own right.  30 miles later, I stripped winter gloves, jacket, and sweatshirt and returned to t-shirt mode, which was AWESOME.  It was borderline hot, but bearable even in traffic.  Say high 80's or so.

Nothing of great interest happened between there and here.  I determined that I have a long day again tomorrow, and so despite the fact that I have all the pictures up to last night uploaded on this here laptop, I don't think you're going to get them just yet.  But it is nice to be up-to-date, and especially nice that I got my new (from over a week ago) iPod loaded last night and got to listen to music today.  I had found that turning off or removing the iPod caused a popping / clanking noise in the front suspension, so I was glad to get that fixed.

Also, the GoPro camera is not dead.  It was just overheated, apparently, and last night after recharging it in the room that never needs air conditioning, it worked just fine.  Sweet.

Really nice Best Western suite tonight... kind of a waste, but comparatively priced for the area, which will put me right at the foot of the historic Columbia River Gorge Highway without dealing with Portland rush hour, which was way more miserable than I'd have ever expected on the way over here tonight.  I didn't see the downtown, but there sure were a lot of cars stopped for a lot of miles on the beltway.  Who'd a thunk it?