Monmouth to Lincoln City - The Epilogue

At 10:30 on May 24th the iron men of 8 struck out for Lincoln City, from our house in Monmouth. Two dads and their 3 sons, 2 cousins and an co-worker struck out on the first leg of the journey at 10:15 am. It was slightly overcast, and a balmy 70 degrees.

Here's a picture of the team:

Notice the prolific use of helmets! Ah papa san, we are so wise - wax on, wax off.

Notice the quality of the steeds. Fine engineering from China, most likely. Also, notice the chamois - to keep the keester from getting bleestered.

We're a fine looking crew though, aren't we? Just rip roaring and ready to go.

At 11:45 we make it to Falls City, which is the last civilized outpost between us and Lincoln City. In Falls City we ate lunch, performed some minor bicycle repairs, and then hightailed it outta there by about 12:15.

On the way up to Falls City, we posed for several pictures, with the breathtaking scenery as a backdrop.

We arrived in Valsetz at about 3:30 pm, with the my lovely wife having delivered the camping equipment, so that we wouldn't have to lug it up the side of the mountain. Here's a picture of a few of the crew enjoying the time off of the bike seat!

For dinner, we had burnt hot dogs cover in burnt chili - it was delicious. We topped off the meal with chips, grapes, pepperidge farm cookies and Hershey's candy bars. Unbelievably and wonderfully appetizing.

We spent a most of the night sleeping fitfully in the tents, with some of us sleeping under the stars. In the middle of the night it rained hard (Valsetz had the dubious distinction of being the rainiest city in the United State - I think it clocked in at 168 inches per year). It only rained for about an hour, and in the morning, it was another beautiful day.

For breakfast, we had pancakes, sausage, bacon, orange juice, coffee, and all of the fixins. Some of the guys enjoyed spraying whipping cream down their gullets.

At 8:36 we broke camp, headed for Lincoln City. On the way, some of the guys posed at another viewpoint - this one overlooking some falls that we could only hear.

At 10:30 we broke company with one of the father/son duos, and the remaining six of us struck out for Lincoln City. On the way, we found this lake....nicknamed "newt lake". The guys liked to say it fast, and called it "nude lake".

At 12:00 we ate lunch at the tip top of a mountain, and then headed down, for a fast downhill, hoping for a quick run to Lincoln City. After about 1.5 hours, we started to get the feeling that something just wasn't quite right. After another 15 minutes, we found out why, when one of the group stopped on a bridge, looked down and started laughing. "What was so funny", I said. "Well, he said, we were at this bridge 5 hours ago!". After overcoming my state of shock and disbelief, we decided to continue on out to Siletz, where the father/son duo had gone whe we hard parted company several hours before.

At 1:30 we headed down the hill, and arrived in Siletz at 5:30. There we at dinner at a dumpy little restaurant that had awesome burgers. The waitress talked as if she was on the mental edge, and it was entertaining to be waited on by her.

I called my lovely after dinner was over, and she said that she would meet us on our way to Kernville, which is a tiny little town on the Oregon Coast. We all saddled up again (chamois weren't doing much good at this point) and headed off to Kernville. After an hour of hard peddling, we met my lovely, and the father/son duo (and the dad's wife), loaded up the bikes and headed home.

We arrived back in Monmouth by 9:00 pm, and then all hit the sack and slept soundly for a long, long time. Muscles were aching like crazy on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday, the general consensus was that we were all feeling pretty good.

A fantastic time was had by all, and we can't wait to try it again. Maybe next time we'll do the trip in one day - I think that we can blast through it in a nice long day, for sure!

Ride on!

-Shannon