Adventures of the Northwest

Wed. Track - BAH! and Yaquina Lighthouse Century

Wednesday Night’s Track was not that great so I won't go into detail. I didn’t do so well as I was a bit frazzled with some personal things I was trying to deal with and I just know that I wasn’t mentally into the races. Oh well – this week will be VERY different. After having a long and somewhat emotional week, as well as unexpected/wanted guests on the track on Wednesday, things died down on Friday and I was able to skip town early on Friday afternoon. I carpooled with LloydW and his wife Cathy, from SBC, for a weekend getaway to Newport, OR. It took us about 7 hours to drive down there as we hit the Portland rush-hour traffic. We got into town, checked into our hotel, and then went out to eat at a local establishment. We then came back to our hotel and called it a night.

Saturday morning we woke up and Cathy was a bit under the weather. So Lloyd and I went down to Starbuck’s for breakfast. We stopped at the farmer’s market and I bought a hoody sweatshirt with a lighthouse appliqué on it. We then went down to the lighthouse and walked around on the beach. It was a lot of fun and felt very relaxing. We looked at some of the tidal pools where I got to see crabs I have never seen before. We walked and talked and I took a few pictures (I’ll post them later on). We then tried to go down to the historic bayfront but traffic was horrendous! Parking was not available so we decided to come back down, with Cathy, on our bikes. As we were going up a massive hill we saw some parking that hardly anyone touched yet. We got Cathy and we decided to park down on that hill instead of bicycling down. We hung out down at the bayfront for a bit. We saw the sea lions and then had lunch at a little deli that had excellent sandwiches. Afterwards, we went out to the Yaquina Lighthouse and walked around in the interpretive center and down to the lighthouse. We went up in the lighthouse which was very cool. I was able to take some nice pictures from inside, outside and at the top of the lighthouse. We then went back to our car and went to get our packets for the Yaquina Lighthouse Century ride which was what we went to Newport for. We picked up our packet and then went to get dinner. We ate at the Spouting Horn restaurant in Depoe Bay. I realized I already ate there once with my ex-husband years ago. It is a great little restaurant. We got to sit near the window and watch some seals in the bay. It was very relaxing and really good food – HMMMM!! Macaroni and cheese was melt in your mouth, homemade GOOD!!! WOW! :) We then returned to our rooms to get ready for Sunday’s ride.

On Sunday we got up early, went down to the interpretive center next to the lighthouse and started the ride. We rode with Cathy until the first rest stop, about 11 miles out, then Lloyd and I took off to do the Century ride and Cathy was to do the Metric Century. Some how a bunch of us (later we find out Cathy did as well) missed the ‘out and back’ section to Elk Hill from Toledo. This was to give us another 20 miles. So we were only going to get 80 miles under us. Oh well we can live with that. The rest stops were nice, the route was scenic, low traffic and awesome. The second rest stop, really the third, was beautiful next to a little river. It was quiet and they served us some great turkey/cheese sandwiches. This was a stretch of the road that was NEWLY paved for 19 miles and was excellent. The last rest stop was along Hwy 101 in Lincoln Beach. WOW! Awesome pictures of that. A little gazebo, sunny day, and beautiful look over the bay/ocean it was just beautiful – absolutely stunning! We are about 25 miles out and it was such a relaxing stop. They had a nice display of oranges with star fruit cut up like ‘garnish’, they had bagels cut up in small pieces with ‘tropical’ fruit trail mix sprinkled on them, celery sticks with cheese and little crab/lobster/fish type crackers standing up in the cheese. They also bought some cookies that had alphabet characters on it and spelled out their bike club name. Excellent idea and I think I’ll do that for RAPSody next week! :)

Lloyd and I left and within about 5 miles my Michelin Pro Race – LIGHT – tires blew a hole in the wall. We patched it up with a “Bumble Bar” wrapper and off we went again. We are about 20 miles from the end and getting into some very scenic areas. About 10 miles out my tire wall blew again. I could hear the air escaping from the same area. At this point we decided to just forget it. Lloyd went on while I called the sag and got sagged off. They were nice enough to sag me through the section that I would have missed of Otter Rock Lookout. It was gorgeous! I took some pictures and then my sag driver took a picture of me, with my camera, and then took a picture of me – taking a picture – for their website. Then they dropped me off.

We changed our clothes and I decided I wanted a souvenoir t-shirt. I stood in line and realized you can get one with the logo of the ride, on the front, and the names of participants on the back. I decided that would be cool as that is the first time I have seen that setup. So I bought a t-shirt with my name highlighted on the back as a participant of their inaugural ride. Lloyd, Cathy and I drove home after that. We had a long night – left Newport around 1ish and got back around 9 pm. Traffic backups, accidents, etc. kept tying us up. It was tiring and I took several short little naps as well as caught up on some reading. Felt good. I felt bad they had to do all the driving but appreciated it. It was a lot of fun! I would love to do that ride again next year. This was their first year and they did an excellent job.

posted by Seattlebiker @ 6:53 AM