After a fitful night’s sleep at my brother’s place, I got up early and got the bike and all of the gear packed and loaded on the newly pimped out Goblin. Everything seemed so organized, but I knew that would last about a day. There’s something about bike touring (ok, my bike touring) that takes neatly folded and rolled items into a chaotic mess after the first night on the road.

This is what your nutty English teacher called “foreshadowing.”

I rode from NE Portland to the Greyhound station, where the Wave bus would pick me up. Best kept secret (if municipal transit is, in fact, ever a secret) is the $15 ride you can get from Portland to the coast. The bike rack got the bike locked in and the ride was pretty, but not terribly eventful.

We rolled into Tillamook right on schedule and MJ was there, rocking the tan of a guy who’s been living on a bike and in a tent for 6 weeks. We spent a few hours in Tillamook repacking and grabbing some supplies (plus spending some time on a work project that decided to pop up at a bad time, but needed fixin). Then, off we went.

The roughly 30 mile ride to Pacific City was largely flat, with a few moderate climbs. The Goblin rose to the occasion. Goblin eats hills for breakfast… Although it was more like a late lunch… Hm, yeah I’ll work on that.

On one of the last couple of climbs we got our first view of Haystack Rock, an iconic formation off the coast. A couple of hills later, and we were waiting in line for our campsite. The place is full of wild bunnies, and apparently some well-fed feral cats. You do the math. An interminable amount of time later (“how’d you pay for that again?” – “what’s your first name again?” – nice guy, but seems to have a short term memory issue) and we were sipping the fine beers of the Pelican Brewery. I believe my tweet as we ate dinner and gazed out over the Pacific and Haystack was: This. Does. Not. Suck.

And it doesn’t.

Except my gear is a mess after setting up camp. See? Foreshadowing!