Day 9 - 9/19/2015 North Bend to Port Orford

Whew - we escaped from the disaster of a motel we stayed in last night and went straight to the pancake house for breakfast.  A clean floor, clean table, clean napkins.  Our plans are to book motels a day or two out each night - depending on how the route looks, the weather and how many miles the riders want to ride.  We search our AAA book, the Adventure Cycling maps, city info and the internet.  We discovered that the descriptions are not always accurate and it does pay to check reviews on line.  The family friendly, quaint, clean motel that we chose for last night in North Bend was anything BUT the description.  UGH       The good news is that the motel we booked for this evening is everything we could ask for.  Today is a GREAT room with a view and a TV so the guys can watch the USC vs Stanford game.

Fishing dock - Port Orford

View from our room

We started this morning from the pancake house a mile from our motel.  A beautiful, clear blue sky day today, riding a bit inland through Bandon and on to Port Orford. 

Kathi and I met in Bandon and enjoyed a walk along the waterfront boardwalk.  All three riders showed up and we all had coffee and a snack before heading south.

A walk with the dogs on the beach before the game.

Jerry's Notes:

A picture perfect day weatherwise made for another outstanding ride.  We were able to enjoy coffee and cinnamon rolls as we rolled through Bandon and then come back to enjoy the town in the afternoon after we checked in at Port Orford.  This town is pretty small but our hotel is outstanding as is the beautiful bay, surrounding beaches and wharf.  Little did we know.  Dogs had a ball on the beach.

Notes from Tom:

For those of you who have our schedule and are following us with it, today was supposed to be a rest day.  We're trying to speed up the trip a little bit to accommodate Tracy's return to his pulpit on Oct. 4th so we took a "light day" instead of a full rest day.  We rode 55 miles in 3-1/2 hours and arrived at the motel by noon.  We averaged 15.6 mph and climbed 2200 feet.

We enjoyed the beautiful weather and the beautiful view from the hotel, and did some bike maintenance, repacking, and general organizing.  As Jerry mentioned, we drove back to Bandon and had fresh crab at the wharf, and picked up pizza for dinner during the SC football game.  A great day was had by all, except the SC football team--an ugly performance.in the Coliseum.

Tomorrow we will leave Oregon and enter California.  I've been on three different bike rides in Washington and Oregon, and this is the least rain I've ever encountered.  I hope CA will be as good to us for the next two weeks--yes, believe it or not, if we keep our current pace, we'll be in San Diego in just over two weeks.