Where to Now?

Day 10: Elma to Raymond

Today's Distance: 76 miles

Total Distance: 441 miles

I woke up today not knowing exactly where I was going, but I knew I planned to crush it.  I wish I had some time to frolf, but not today.  So instead I had a nice long stretch and went to grab some breakfast and a coffee at a local diner. I overheard some teenage kid saying to his dad, "But I could've shot that bear, I don't know why you stopped me!"  What?  Like for fun?  I don't get it.  Anyways, I was ready to get out of this town and frankly I'm ready to get out of  these small Washington towns as a whole.  My stretch goal was to make it into Astoria, Oregon today which would mean I would need to put in at least a 90 mile day.  If my book isn't lying to me again, the terrain seems pretty flat so I definitely think it's possible.  I jumped on the highway 12 and started flying. Nothing to see, just a busy highway.  The wind was neutral and it was a San Diego-esque 70 degrees. I even had to stop to put some sunscreen on my face and tattoo just in case.  I'm about 15 miles in and who do I see, once again it's Frankie somehow in front of me.  I catch up to him and slow down my pace to figure out what he's been up to.  Remember how I joked about sleeping on someone's private Christmas tree farm?  Well apparently Frankie had to do just that!  Haha, this kid is a character.  I'm scared for his life, but he's proving to be pretty resilient.  He said he set up camp in Shelton on private property and the owners actually ended up calling the cops on him.  He got rolled on by the po po around 8:30pm and he had to pack everything up and ride in the dark to a park that the cop suggested.  He's been riding for about 3 hours at this point so that's how he caught back up to me.  Did I mention he only has a tarp and hammock and that he's been waking up every morning in a wet sleeping bag from the condensation?  Well yeah, so he's finally decided to invest in a tent and is headed to the nearest Walmart in Aberdeen.  I rode with him for a little while, but I needed to get moving if I was going to make it to the Oregon border today.

I took off again and was making great time on this level ground.  When I made it to Aberdeen I was faced with another choice like yesterday: Listen to Google or the book?  Admittedly yesterday's decision to trust Google didn't work out so well for me.  The dilemma was that the book suggested a nice easy ride west along the coast on the 105 and Google suggested to stay on the 101 S and save myself over 25 miles!  Something seemed fishy about this.  Why wouldn't the book at least mention this alternate route?  25 miles on a bike is a lot of miles, but I have no clue if it's an insane amount of hills or what.  If it's 25 miles of mountainous terrain than there is a good chance that I don't make it to even my smaller goal destination before dark.  After yesterday's narrow escape from the zombie apocalypse it seems like an obvious choice right?  So yeah, I went against the book again and started heading down the 101. So what...I'm  stubborn and some times it takes me a while to learn my lesson.  Almost immediately I hit a lot of wind. Crap. About a mile in I notice a huge climb into what looks like hilly terrain. Ok.  Maybe I just need some energy, so I stop at a gas station and get a red bull. Just out of curiousity I ask the lady working if the 101 is hilly at all. Her answer, "OMG YES!  I used to have to drive that way to work and it's the worst!  And they're doing construction."  Hmmm, ok. So I sat outside drinking my red bull, still not fully convinced I should listen to the gas attendant.  I just really hate to backtrack. Maybe it was the caffeine going to my head, but I went ahead and turned around and on back to the 105.  Oregon can wait until tomorrow.

So grunge.

I made a good choice!  I'm flying again, I just have a lot of miles to go.  There was a long, not so steep hill but I crushed that and then I was in Markham, the home of Ocean Spray dried cranberries and cranberry sauce.  No free samples, so no need to linger.

Today I saw an extraordinary amount of roadkill. RIP raccoons, opossum, and crow.  Also today, like 5 or 6 people yelled at me as they drove by.  I'm not doing anything wrong. And I'm wearing my Nike tights today over my shorts, so it's not the ladies hollering again.  So I can only assume it's punk kids.  One car full of teens even drove by multiple times.  There was some yelling, a middle finger, and some more yelling. The last time they drove by they gave me the "Rock on" fingers and friendly waves though, so we mended that relationship.  I was getting pretty tired once I hit Grayland so I stopped at a convenience store/deli because that was my only option until Raymond, where I decided I would call it a day.  The deli had no sandwiches.  A deli...with no sandwiches...  So lunch today was a bag of Funyuns, a Gatorade, and a bag of peanut butter M&M's.  Sure the deli didn't have any sandwiches, but they made up for it with a gold mine of VHS tapes.  Just knowing that kept me satisfied.

After my nutritious meal, I had to get going again. 30 more miles to Raymond. Immediately as I got going the screen on my phone just stopped working.  I kept checking it every few minutes to see if it started working again and nothing. I started to feel that anxiety again even though I knew the directions to where I was going.  I haven't seen a Verizon store since I left San Diego, how am I going to go the rest of this trip without a phone?  All I could do was keep going and hope for the best.  When it was all said and done I think it may have been a test or another lesson because it forced me to have no distractions and nothing to rely on but myself.  No music, no pictures, just me, the bike, and a great opportunity to take it all in and enjoy the view.  Yesterday was the longest ride I ever did and today I beat that by over 10 miles!  I realized that I rode it all today: the highway, then the beach, then forest, and lastly farmland.  When I was riding through the beach/bay terrain the bugs were out in full force. It's like they wanted to be hit by me. I was like a windshield after a long roadtrip when I got to Raymond, no joke.  I was so tired I didn't want to make or even go get dinner so I just ate what was in my bag: an airhead, cola gummies, dark chocolate covered almonds, and some raw spanish almonds...plus all the protein from the bugs i'm sure I ate!  Bon Appétit!

What Did I Learn?

•It's good to "disconnect" every once in a while

•This is not a race. Enjoy it!