Devil's Lake to Jessie Honeyman State Park

I want to go home. The thought reverberates through my mind over and over until it's the only thing I can focus on. That and "I'm cold" and "I am so over being wet." As rain falls sporadically, I gladly say goodbye to Devil's Lake, planning on going to Jessie Honeyman Menorial State Park smack in the middle of Oregon's dune country. It was slow going from the start. My expectations of average speed were decreasing by the mile. Look, I ride bikes a lot. I've ridden bikes a lot for a very long time. I've not infrequently done things such as being off the bike for a few weeks then suddenly feeling like a junkie needing his next fix.and knocking out a century. I ride hard. And I ride fast. Except this trip. Carrying 50 lbs of gear on a steel bike with 32mm tires is a whole different beast than riding a 15lb carbon bike with nothing except a clif bar and spare tube in your pockets. I knew that. I accounted for that. What I didn't account for was a bloody unrelenting head wind and non-stop rain. The entire day was miserable. My trash knee was aching constantly, I was cold, I was wet, and I could not imagine anything worse than doing this for another day, lret alone two or three weeks. There was however, one bright spot in the day, and that was Newport. Newport is home to another one of Oregon's stupidly large bridges. And Rogue Brewing's national headquarters. I had to stop for a beer. It was 11am and I didn't care. I needed a beer. Or two. Or three as it ended up. Rogue had forty on tap and I bought a flight of 7, but the extremely nice bar tender kept asking !me if I'd ever tried this beer or that beer, and upon me shaking my head, drawing me up half glasses of each. I tipped her well. I woke up at 2am to it pouring. An irregular drip of water was hitting my head. I started praying to whoever could hear me that my tent would hold and that I didn't end up in a puddle of water. It was a restless night. I want to go home.