Land of Cheese, Trees, and Ocean Breeze: Tillamook

From Eugene, we spent two days getting to the Pacific Ocean.

The first day, we were headed 95 miles from Eugene to Tillamook. I rode with Tom that day -- Tom was one of my first friends on the team (along with Jared) and we didn't ride together often throughout the trip, so we wanted to ride together before the end. We also picked up Maroun and Rowen, so that was my group for the day.

It was CHILLY!! I wore my jacket and fuzzy gloves, and was still really cold most of the day. It never warmed up. I was amazed because, well, it's August. August in Maryland means oppressive, nasty, sticky heat. Apparently this is normal for Oregon especially near the coast. So, when can I move to Oregon...?

Time for a mention of Dutch Bros: Dutch Brothers' is a West Coast coffee shop that everyone on my team was obsessed with. I don't drink caffeine so I couldn't get into it but I guess it was cute. The west coast is really into drive-through coffee shops. At first I thought it was really crazy but now that I'm back I think it's really crazy to NOT have drive-throughs. The concept definitely makes sense. 

Anyway, whenever we saw a Dutch Bros., we HAD to stop. Here's us going through the drive-through at one of them:

I guess I don't really have much to say about the day, other than some people were having a really rough day and so groups got wayyy spread out along the route. That made the vans' jobs tricky, especially with the complete lack of cell service in the forest we were riding through. The water van didn't catch up to my group so we were without water for about 40 miles and there were no towns to fill up in. Luckily, it really wasn't a big deal. Because of the cold we were barely drinking any water at all.

This is us playing around on a weigh station.

A few highlights included one major climb, and at the top we tried to go into this winery to use their restroom. They wanted us to pay for their restrooms. Even after we explained we were a non-profit and what we were doing they turned us away. We tried to give them a bad review on Yelp but they apparently don't have an online presence. Boo! 

A vineyard! Ooooo!

The other highlight was... signs for the Oregon Coast!! I just couldn't believe we had seriously biked there and were in the home stretch. It almost, ALMOST made heading the exact opposite direction of Portland worth it :P

We had an awesome lunch that day that included burgers and milkshakes. You know that song that goes "I heard that you were trouble but I couldn't resist?" That song was obviously written about my feelings about drinking a chocolate milkshake 60 miles in to a 95 mile bike ride. I did it anyway. We literally hadn't been back on our bikes for more than 10 feet before I felt that milkshake coming back up. Lol. Luckily I avoided disaster and survived the rest of the ride.

Along with all the pros of biking through a forest all day and approaching the coastline, we encountered the flip side of forest life: logging trucks. Ughhh. These things were basically death machines -- huge trucks that whipped around these windy forest curves at terrifying speeds. Most of the time the road did not have a shoulder, so I was totally scared of these trucks. Even when the trucks were empty they were still terrifying - they have 4 giant prongs that stick up to hold the logs in place, so when empty they still look like they're going to eat you for dinner. Eek. I was glad when we got off the roads that day.

As we rolled into Tillamook, an amazing thing happened: The buildings started looking more beach-y, and the air started smelling like the ocean!! It was super exciting. The anticipation to see the water was killing us!

That night we had amazing hosts in Tillamook... this church has hosted us for many years and knew our needs like the backs of their hands. I mean they had chocolate milk waiting for us. *angels singing*

We had a really lively dinner at the church that involved a ton of great dishes from the community, lots of church members joining us, trays of cheese from the famous cheese factory, and multiple kegs of beer from the local brewery. After that we all introduced ourselves and then split into our last homestays of the trip!

My host parents were super nice and had an awesome house. They lived right on Tillamook Bay and had an absolutely gorgeous view. 

A cheese-shaped nightlight. Hashtag Tillamook problems?

Not to mention I had a bed all to myself and... drum roll please... a memory foam mattress!!! It was so comfortable that in the morning when it was time to leave I debated in my head, Pacific Ocean vs. Memory Foam mattress... hmmmmm...

After summoning all my willpower to remove myself from the heavenly depths of the mattress, my host dad gave me a ride back to the church, where we had an awesome breakfast of blueberry pancakes and eggs. The blueberries were especially notable because they were very fresh Oregon berries. Yum!!

My host dad Mick and I

An interesting story is that for dinner, homestays and breakfast we were joined by some special guests: a group of 6 other college-aged long-distance cyclists. They were riding down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco. They normally camp, but as they were riding into Tillamook that evening, one of the ladies from the church spotted them on the road and thought they were a part of the 4K, so she went up to direct them to the church. 

When she found out they weren't a part of our group, she excitedly invited them anyway and arranged homestays for them too!! They were really grateful to have beds and a home-cooked meal that they were totally not expecting. They were a lot more rustic/ hardcore than us... they rarely have showers, they camp almost all the time, don't really worry about charging their phones or shaving...(all the guys had some pretty intense beards), and don't have Facebooks. Gasp!! One of the guys' bikes had a bit of a problem... and Porter fixed it for him. Porter is so selfless and always willing to help!

The 6 other cyclists joined us for our dedication circle, as did many of our hosts. It was the biggest dedication circle we'd had all trip! In anticipation of reaching the Pacific Ocean that day, everyone had someone to ride for that day, to whom they wanted to dedicate the most monumental day of the trip. So instead of popcorn-style, we did our dedications in order around the circle. Even our guests also dedicated their ride that day to people they knew affected by cancer.

The other cyclists joining us for our dedication circle :)

With anticipation so thick you could cut it with a knife (..can you say that?), 68 days after dipping our tires in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, we set off for the Pacific Ocean....