I had intended to get an early start, but I spent a good chunk of time this morning on the phone with my real estate agent and lawyer. Nothing like trying to sell a condo when you're nowhere near home! I got what I thought was a pretty low offer on the condo, decide to counter it a few thousand dollars higher, splitting the difference between the offer and what I really wanted to get. After a month of showings and no offers I'm afraid to pass this up. There were no phone messages tonight, so I don't know if the counter offer was accepted. I don't want to go lower than that, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will work. There is one potential "gotcha" on the offer - the couple has a house to sell in Acton. They didn't make a contingency offer, but there could be an issue with a bridge loan. Larry is going to write something into the offer letter and P&S where they will forfeit their deposit if they can't get financing because of their other house. I think I've done a good job of not worrying about this stuff so far on my trip, so I'm going to just have to try to get back to that frame of mind and not worry about it now.
I finally started riding at 10:30. Not early, but not a problem either. I rode in fog for a good portion of the day. It started to burn off, but was then back in full force by the town of Seaside. I detoured into the town to see what was there -- turned out to be not much. I backtracked back to route 101, and ran smack into a Nike factory outlet. I stopped and replaced my running shoes with another pair of the same type. I thought I could make it through the trip with my old shoes, but they've been bothering my feet. So I opened my panniers in the parking lot, threw out the old shoes, and threw the new ones into the pack. My feet were happy when I got to camp and had new comfy shoes!
One of the sales people in the store saw my loaded bike and came over to talk. He races in duathalons (run, bike, run) and has done some touring. We had a really nice conversation. My Peter Mooney frame has definitely been starting conversations on this trip - I'll have to remember to tell him. Some of the people who have been attracted to the bike have been more curious about loaded touring in general, but several (mostly people in bike shops and folks like the sales guy at the Nike store) have definitely been interested in the frame.
My next stop was Cannon Beach. It seemed to be a nice town, pretty laid back. Haystack Rock appeared through the fog, so I stopped and walked down to the beach. As soon as I got down to the beach, the rock totally disappeared again. Standing in the middle of all of that fog is somewhat disconcerting.
I met a biking couple from Oregon there. Nice folks, traveling light, no cooking gear. We ended up at the same campground later.
A couple more serious hills... getting to the top gave me an excuse to stop and talk. I met a biker from Portland at the top of one of them, and a woman from Pennsylvania at the top of the next.
I'm camping at Newhalem Bay. If this is any indication of Oregon State Parks, they are pretty incredible. The regular campsites are $19, but the hiker-biker sites are $4. And the showers are free, no more coin-operated showers! There are six of us camped among the trees in the hiker-biker site - all bikers. There is a couple from Switzerland heading north, a couple from Wisconsin, a single guy from Seattle, and me, all headed south. Nice company.
I walked out to the beach after dinner. It's incredibly beautiful - but the marine layer is rolling in again. Here's hoping that I spend less time in the fog tomorrow!
