My brother Bob and I started out early Wednesday morning, September 26^th in a light misty rain. As we pulled out of my mom’s garage, Bob noticed he had a flat tire. Luckily I had a spare tube with me, so we pulled back in the garage for a quick tire repair. Soon we were back on our way.

It was all downhill for the most part into Seattle from Maple Valley. The first part of this leg we rode on the shoulder of route 169. It was pretty wide, as were most of the shoulders in Washington and Oregon that we encountered. The Cedar River Trail paralleled the road at this point, but it was fairly loose gravel, so we chose to stick to the road. Soon we came to where the trail switched to an asphalt surface, so we moved over to it and stayed with it down to Renton. Once in Renton, we headed west along Grady Way until we came to the Green River trail. About this time, the misty rain turned into a steady drizzle. This didn’t stop the numerous folks that we saw fishing along the river though. One spot along the trail took us through the back of a parking lot and on a sidewalk. The sidewalk had some moss growing on it and when Bob went to turn onto the road, his bke slipped out from under him and down he went. Luckily he was virtually stopped at the time, so the only injury was to his pride. He was up immediately and we continued on.

At the end of the Green River trail, we followed a route I had mapped out that was to take us west to the Fauntleroy Ferry. Almost immediately after leaving the trail and getting on city streets, I got my first flat. The Tioga City Slicker tires seem to soak up the glass and metal debris that is found on the streets in that area, which is fairly industrial. Again, I had a spare tube, so I didn’t have to attempt patching it in the rain. Off we went again and soon came to a nice climb up and around Westcrest Park. Well, my route notes weren’t perfect, and we didn’t have a map that showed the needed details, so we ended up going up the hill and turning left when we should have gone right. Then we asked someone for the general direction to Fauntleroy. Well, he pointed us in even more of the wrong direction. Off we headed back downhill thinking that maybe we never really needed to climb it in the first place. Keep in mind that Bob had only done a single 50 mile ride to prepare for this trip and going up the hill had been taxing. So imagine our reaction when we came to an intersection and Bob exclaimed that we had already been there. It was quite easy to tell. There was a distinctive mural painted on the concrete wall of an underpass. We had just passed along it moments before. Before we climbed the hill.

Well, we decided to see if there was a turn we had missed just as the hill had started.Off we went to begin the climb again. We couldn’t spot the turn, so we decided to head back down and find someone else to ask directions of.And that was when flat tire number two hit me. Raining and flat tires. What a combination. We walked the bikes a short distance and found a small sheltered area where I could patch the tire. Once done, we headed out again and immediately stopped and asked a young lady for directions. She gave us clear directions and soon we were off.Some may find that a bit ironic … others will just smile. Back up the hill we went, only this time, we turned in the right direction, which took us even higher. But from that point on, the route notes were fine and it was all downhill to the ferry from the top of the hill.

At the ferry, we were able to board one that was just leaving. We got inside where it was a bit warmer and Bob got a cup of coffee while I got hot chocolate.Soon we arrived in Southport and we were off again. The route notes were just fine as we headed out on Sedgewick Road. But then they became a little less than perfect and we came to an intersection that wasn’t what was We tried to find someone from which we could confirm our location in a small neighborhood by the intersection, but none of our knocks were answered. Possibly all were commuters who worked in the city. After spending 30 minutes in a steady rain trying to find someone, we finally noticed a fire station hidden away on the other side of the road. We immediately were set straight and were off again. We had been at the right location all along, but it was one of those roads that change from one name to another and I had not picked up on that when I made up the route notes.

At this point, we decided to alter our route slightly. We were going to take the road that went along Hood Canal, but we had lost a lot of time with the flat tires and the route problems, so we decided to head straight to Shelton along route 3. Along the way, I got flat tire number 3!!! I tried to pump it up a few times, but it was only holding enough air to go about a mile at a time, so finally we pulled into the parking lot of Stretch Island Fruit where they make “Fruit Leather”. It is similar to “Fruit Roll-ups”. We parked under some cover and I patched the previously punctured tube and the latest one as well.A nice lady brought us out some samples of “Fruit Leather” and soon we were on our way again. We finally arrived in Shelton at about 5:30pm or so having done just over 80 miles.

We were supposed to be heading on to the Lake Nahwatzal Resort where we had a cabin reserved for the night.Bob and I decided to push onwards and try to make it before dark. We soon arrived and after our 95 miles of riding, both thought that it was one of the most wonderful sights we had seen. Lake Nahwatzal is actually a very pretty place with the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop. It is a RV park, but has two “cabins” that can be rented for $65 a night, one of which Bob and I stayed in. After a welcome hot shower, we headed over to the resort’s restaurant where we both had the Captain’s Plate. This included fried oysters, scallops, prawns and fish.It was hot and pretty tasty but most importantly filled us up quite nicely. After dinner, we both went straight to bed for a well deserved rest.

The next morning we were up bright and early. The air was quite cool, but there was no sign of rain, which made both of us feel pretty good. After taking a few photos, we were on the road by 7:30am.The resort’s restaurant didn’t open until 10:00am, so we headed for Matlock, the next town on our route about 4 miles down the road. We soon arrived and found it consisted of about 4 buildings, one of which was a small store.We both had a large apple bits muffin and split a quart of orange juice.

One of the folks sitting in the store worked with the fire department, so we asked him about our upcoming route.I had planned on taking back roads, some of which were unpaved. He informed us that some of these were single lane on which we were likely to encounter logging trucks. He also said they typically figured they had the right of way over anything or anyone else that happened to be in the road. After hearing that and remembering the trouble we had with flat tires the previous day, we once again decided to alter the route slightly and stick to paved roads. He confirmed that we could easily dothis, and soon we were off again.

The rest of the morning’s ride was fairly level which was a welcome change from the latter part of the previous day. The sun began to shine and soon we began to warm up. We arrived in Aberdeen right around the noon hour and found a restaurant to stop and have a nice relaxing lunch. The special of the day was a fajita chicken salad that we both thought sounded pretty good and ordered, but afterwards, we both wished we had gotten something different. It was a nice change though from the previous day when we only had time for a quick lunch stop at McDonald’s. after about an hour, we were back on our bikes and headed for the town of Tokeland.

Our route from Aberdeen took us along the south shore of Grays Harbor and then along the shore of South Bay.Soon we reached the Pacific Coast, or at least the road turned south along it. We ventured down one side road and were able to ride right down onto the beach. After a few photos, we continued south along the coast through Grayland and soon found ourselves at the turnoff to Tokeland. This little town is at the end of a point of land that sticks out into Willap Bay. It is a two mile ride from the main road to the Tokeland Hotel which is almost at the end of the point. We arrived at the hotel at 3:30pm in bright sunshine and couldn’t have been happier.

The Tokeland Hotel was originally built as a home back in 1885. Sometime in the early 1890’s, the owner expanded it and turned it into a inn of sorts.Over the years, it has continued in this role with at least one period of inactivity during which it was allowed to fall into some degree of disrepair. About 10 years ago, a couple from Seattle purchased the hotel and restored it to some degree. The rooms have antique furniture, as does the great room and a side room with the fireplace. At some point in time, a large glassed in porch was added to the rear of the hotel. This is open to the great room and is used as the restaurant.The tables and chairs are of simple wood construction with fairly plain lace tablecloths.

After we checked in and took in the surroundings, Bob and I went up to our room. It was small, but had two twin beds and was just perfect.All of the rooms are on the second floor and share bathrooms that are found in the hallway. When the hotel is full, there might be a wait occasionally for an available bathroom, but we were the only guests, so we had several to choose from.Off we headed to take a wonderful hot shower. They always seem to feel so absolutely wonderful after a long day’s ride. Soon we were both taking a welcome nap.

We rose from our naps around 6:00pm and headed downstairs for dinner. The menu had some very nice choices, but we settled on an appetizer of fried oysters and a dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy. The oysters were from Brady's Oysters, a nearby family owned and operated business. They grow oysters on Suspended Culture, a unique method developed by Brady Engvall in the early 1970's. This method keeps the oyster out of the mud, yielding a better tasting oyster. I have to say that the oysters Bob and I had were some of the best I have ever eaten.The meatloaf was also pretty good, and so were the fresh out of the oven rolls. By the time we were finished, we couldn’t even find the room for the homemade deserts that were available.

After dinner, we moved to the room with the fireplace.We got a pretty nice fire going and the cook brought us both a delicious cup of hot chocolate.Soon the cook and the waitress were finished for the night and headed home. That left Bob and I as the only people in the hotel.There is no caretaker and we were the only guests for the night. We sat and enjoyed the fire for a little while longer and then headed upstairs for a good nights rest.

The next morning, we slept a little later since breakfast wasn’t until 8:30am After showering and getting dressed, I went downstairs and got the fire going again. It was a little cool, and I really like sitting in front of fireplace that has a good fire going. Breakfast time soon arrived and I had blueberry pancakes while Bob had plain. They weren’t nearly as good as the ones the Frank made us the morning of our departure, but they still tasted very good. After breakfast, we loaded up the bikes, took a few photos, and hit the road for our last day of riding.It was about 9:30am, but I thought we were in good shape time wise since the day before we had arrived at our destination by 3:30pm.Soon I began to realize that my calculations for the day’s ride were a bit off. I didn’t say anything to Bob, but it wasn’t long before I knew that we had about 110 miles ahead of us. That was going to make the day quite long. But it soon got worse.A guy who was eating breakfast around the same time we were had mentioned that we would be heading into the wind during our ride that day. It turned out that he was right. And it was a pretty stiff wind. This slowed us down quite a bit which compounded the problem of our late departure.

And to make matters even more difficult, the first part of the day’s ride took us along the north shore of Willapa Bay, up the Willapa River basin, back down the Willapa River basin, and then along the south shore of Willapa Bay. After riding about 35 miles, we were able to look across the bay and see Tokeland less than 5 miles away. It almost made it seem as though we hadn’t gotten anywhere.At least this part of the trip was for the most part level.

Half way around Willapa Bay, we came to Raymond, a small logging town on the Willapa River. As we came into town, we noticed a large number of iron sculptures along the roadside.I later read that these were incorporated into the Raymond landscape in 1993, and were designed by local artists to reflect the heritage of the area.They were something one would expect to see in a park rather than alongside a highway leading into town.

< We pushed on and soon began to close in on Astoria, Oregon. We had one pretty good climb between the Bear River Ridge and the Bald Ridge before we would come to the Columbia River. It wasn’t too bad though and we soon found ourselves riding along the Columbia towards the Astoria-Megler Bridge into a very stiff headwind that was coming up the river. I actually felt pretty good about that headwind since I was pretty sure it meant we would have a tailwind for the last 35 miles of the day’s trip from Astoria to Clatskanie.

Finally we arrived at the bridge.It bears describing. It is a two-lane bridge four miles in length without any noticeable shoulder on either side. As we rode across, the cars approaching us from the rear passed us with little room to spare. Luckily traffic wasn’t very heavy at the time of our crossing.Adding to this challenge, the wind was blowing almost directly in our faces and was stiffer than anything we had encountered thus far. And then at the end of the bridge, the last half-mile had about an 8% grade. What a relief it was to reach the end of that climb. The descent into Astoria was quite enjoyable, but I know that I didn’t feel totally comfortable until we had returned to roads on dry land with normal shoulders.

Astoria is quite a popular town.It sits on a hillside overlooking the Columbia River and really deserved a longer visit, but we didn’t arrive until about 3:30pm and still had 35 miles to go. We did stop for a burger at McDonald’s, some Tri-Lube from a hardware store for the bikes, and an adaptor to allow me to pump up my rear tire using the gas station air hose. My bicycle pump was damaged coming over in the plane and wasn’t working too well. Once we had taken care of all these stops, we headed out around 4:00pm on the last leg of your little journey.

It wasn’t long after leaving Astoria that we began to hit somewhat rolling terrain. Traffic wasn’t too bad though, and we had the following wind I anticipated earlier, so things went pretty smoothly.About 10 miles out of Astoria, two Harleys went cruising by. It was my buddy Mitch and his brother. They turned around and came back and we all greeted each other.That charged me up and also Bob a bit as well. While we were stopped, I had a look at Bob’s bike. He had noticed a problem with his derailleur that I had attributed to the long chain. The owner had too wide a range of gearing on the bike for the derailleur to handle and certain chainring/rear cog combinations could not be used. But it now seemed to be a problem no matter what gear was being used. On closer inspection, I discovered that the bolt that fastens the rear derailleur to the bike frame had backed out almost all the way. If Mitch and his brother hadn’t met up with us, the derailleur might have come off while Bob was riding and caused significant damage to the bike. If it had come off earlier during the crossing of the bridge, it could have been disastrous. I tightened up the bolt, Mitch and his brother Roy headed off on their Harleys, and Bob and I continued towards Clatskanie. Mitch told us we had one or two more hills to get over and then it would be completely flat into Clatskanie.

Well, he was right about the second part, but what doesn’t seem to be a hill for a motorcycle can be for a bicycle.We had quite a few more than two hills to bike. There were only two large hills though and from the top of the last one, it was quite a nice descent down to the flats. We went over the 100 mile mark on that descent and at the bottom I told Bob he had just accomplished his first century.

Once on the flats, we held a steady pace all the way to Clatskanie. Soon we rolled into town where Mitch was waiting to lead us to his folks place. They lived just past east edge of town, so we rode through and soon were approaching what we could tell was a very long and steep hill. I knew we would be turning just before the hill, but Bob wasn’t so confident. Even when I assured him of this, he still had his doubts.Remember, we had a few problems with my knowledge of the route during the previous days. But sure enough we turned off just before the hill and headed down a side road. Then it was down a short dirt road to the house at the end of which was one short but steep climb to the driveway.I thought it was very appropriate considering the rest of our trip.

Our trip ended up being a total of 289 miles with days of 95, 81, and 113 miles.We saw quite of bit of Washington and a little of Oregon, but in retrospect, we should have ridden less distance each day and allowed more time to just enjoy the scenery. Next time we will know better.

David Shook