Day 19 – Cold & Wet first half, Warmish & Sunny to finish!

What a crappy way to start a day – heavy drizzle and 40ish 🙁 and for the first half of the day it alternated from mist to heavy rain as I leaned the Harley into every second corner ! I was riding southward on Oregon 101, which is part of the Pacific Coast Highway and half of it was right along the coast with some great ocean views from on high or from beach level. But after I stopped for lunch in Florence, Oregon the wind came up a bit and blew the rain clouds inland. It was still quite cool and I was very thankful for my heated gear:) I made it as far as Crescent City, California and found an incredible viewpoint to watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

I really took my time today and stopped quite often for some photo opps. From fishermen in the mist and the rain, thru some shoreline vistas to an incredible rocky, oceanview of a less than impressive sunset I did make the day a photo day! Although the setting sun wasn’t much, the shoreline vista and clouds in the other direction more than made up for it. The ride itself was fun, relaxing (mostly – in spite of the cold), and uneventful. The curvy roads were just a little too wet to lay into the turns too far, so no scraping of foot pegs today and unless you count a lumbering black bear crossing in front of me nothing to get the adrenaline pumping!

I did meet some nice people though. A bicyclist from Vancouver, BC, named Josh who I met at a look-off, was on his way to the Baja Peninsula of Mexico with a young Aussie female he met along the way; a polite, recovering drug addict, Terri, who had just been released from prison and was enjoying the sound and smells of the ocean as she counted her blessings; and a couple, Rob (originally from New Jersey) and Melissa, from Florida vacationing in California who watched the sunset with me. Rob was having a little difficulty with his new camera so I helped him out a bit there.

So despite the cold wet start to the day it was really quite enjoyable and memorable day – the kind of day that this trip is really all about. Tomorrow I head to the redwood forest so I’m hoping for some sunshine so I can get out my infra-red camera and the 8mm lens!