Last summer we had a great ride on the bike going from Monterrey to Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Highway. We’ve heard from so many people that if we really wanted to see spectacular scenery, we needed to ride the PCH in Oregon so today was the day!
We started at Astoria, OR which is mile marker 0 and rode to Florence, 190 miles south. Thanks to a great guidebook, I could follow along and tell Burl all kinds of fascinating facts about where we were and let him know what we would have been seeing had the ocean and shoreline not been covered in thick fog!
We know there’s nothing we can do about the weather – fine mist, thick fog and 55 degree weather aren’t really conducive to a great ride but hey, we kept thinking that any minute the fog would life, the fickle sun would really decide to shine and we’d get our views.
What we discovered is that the stretch of 101 that we rode today is like the Branson Strip for most of the 190 miles we rode. Tons of little towns, lots of tourist traps, 2-lane roads and people continually pulling out in front of others. One thing we always notice about Branson is that people are incredibly polite about letting traffic into the flow – and Highway 76 is also much wider and more scenic!
After a couple of hours we needed a break so we stopped at one of Oregon’s top tourist attractions/traps – Tillamook Cheese Factory.
Burl enjoys some delicious ice cream at Tillamook Cheese Factory
We did a self-guided tour of the factory and then shared a sampler dish of 3 flavors of their ice cream – Peaches & Cream, Caramel Almond Crunch and Cookie Dough. We also got a few samples of cheese and decided to buy some since we were there – until we saw the huge line at the check out lane with one 2 lanes open. Guess we’ll get their cheese at the grocery store.
A little later we were blessed with a bit of a lift in the fog and were able to catch a few sightings of the coast which appears to be awesome.
View of the Oregon coastline from Highway 101
Since we had ice cream late in the morning we decided to ditch our normal picnic today and have a late lunch/early dinner when we got to Florence. I could already taste the fresh seafood when we pulled into a restaurant/market that advertised they had been voted “best seafood”. I have no idea who voted but when I kept asking for something grilled, the waitress looked at me like I was nuts. In the end, Burl had fried clams (he said they were so-so) and I had a smoked turkey sandwich – but the slaw was excellent. Win some…..lose some!
At Florence, we turned left (east) on our way to Bend and were assured that as soon as we got into the valley, the temperature would rise and we’d see sunshine. Sure enough – within 20 miles, the temp was 85 (up 27 degrees!) and the skies were clear.
Oregon Highway 126 about 20 miles east of Florence, OR
By 4:00 we had been on the road for 7 hours (including stops) and gone 190 miles so we were ready to make tracks to Bend, OR which was another 175+ miles away. We got on Highway 126 which was a beautiful road without much traffic and took us through the Willamette National Forest. Suddenly we’d gone from the ocean to spectacular pine forests and snow-capped mountains!
By time we got to our hotel it was after 8:00 so we had a snack out of the cooler and have been plotting our day for tomorrow. It will be shorter time-wise but will cover more miles.
Destination: Twin Falls, ID
Have loved all the pictures, shared them with my parents when we were home last weekend… my mom was impressed with all the traveling but also that you are so high-tech with your blog and your I-phone!