Day 4: Shelton to Astoria (112 miles)

In films and TV, a character's journey into the afterlife is is often depicted as them walking into a fog. Sometimes there's a bridge. The character will disappear from view as they cross the bridge and move on.

This imagery came to mind as I fought my way across the 5 mile Astoria bridge this evening. Except instead of disappearing into a peaceful fog, the end of my bridge was obscured by the pouring rain. And the “high winds advisory” for today finally made sense as I struggled to keep the bike straight. And the bridge was covered in the mangled corpses of dead seabirds.

No, I wasn't crossing over into heaven, I was descending into Davy Jones’ Locker.

The bridge from hell.

It was the last 3 miles of a 112 mile day and I was beyond done. It was raining steadily when I rolled out at 7:30, and it hadn't let up all day. Forever a SoCal kid at heart, The idea of riding in the rain goes against my very nature. And yet, here I was.

Having finally given up on Google Map's bike directions, I decided to play “”highway hopping” today aka I never travelled on a road that wasn't a highway. Mostly this worked out fine, I was on the 101 for most of it and it had a nice wide shoulder free of gravel and other debris. Highway 12 on the other hand is terrible, way too many onramp crossings and bridges where you completely lose the shoulder.

All day. It rained all day.

After I hit Raymond around mile 65, it finally became the ride I pictured. Even in the rain, the area was beautiful. My mom's dad grew up in Raymond and while I too would want to escape to the big city if I had grown up in this one street town, I could picture settling down in an area like this one day. Life moves slower out here than it does in Seattle.

Raymond and its neighbor South Bend (the oyster capital of the world!) are products of another time. A time when logging and fishing reigned. But there's a feel to them that just can't be replicated in the big cities.

Due to the wind advisory starting in the afternoon, I'd originally planned to call it a short day and stay in Raymond.

But I had no service there. And that made me more uncomfortable than I'd like to admit.

Raymond is filled with all sorts of metal statues.

The wind hadn't picked up yet so I kept rolling. And rolling. And rolling. Because there is literally nothing between there and Astoria. And 50 miles on a loaded touring bike is a lot longer than 50 miles in a car.

Somewhere in the last fifteen miles of this trek, in Lewis and Clark National Park, I crested yet another hill and there was the ocean. And the wind. And the rain picked up.

(It's oddly fitting that the visitor centers are named “Dismal Nitch” and “Cape Disappointment.”)

Finally, like an angel of the Lord, I saw the sign for the Astoria Bridge. Which brings us back to the beginning of this tale.

After I survived the bridge to Hell, I was spent. I couldn't see due to the downpour and ever cognizant of the approaching 50-90mph winds the weather service was predicting, I called it a day.

Fear of falling branches kept me from camping, so I shelled out for a Motel 6. And my solution to being both freezing and starving was to eat while sitting in the bath tub.

I regret nothing.

Total Miles: 349

Best Sight of the Day: "Jayden's German Store."  In the one street, 1,500 person fishing town of South Bend.

Good Guy Driver of the Day: in Raymond, I was going straight on the highway when a car sped through a stop at the intersection, cutting me off, and forcing me to slam on my brakes. A car stopped on my side of the road made eye contact with me, and gave the universal " wtf was that about?" gesture, commiserating with me over stupid drivers.