May 15, day 12 Newport to Florence

May 15, day 12 Newport to Florence

Starting odo 6656

I'm trying to review photos and get going - so I'm just going to
upload the photos and I'm not going to attempt to place them in the
right spot in the text, sorry about that. There are actually too many
photos but I'll post as many as I can. Some of these look pretty good!

I got on the road about noon, spending the morning with the usual
stuff, but also reviewing photos on the camera to upload to the blog.
Then I had to take all the gear off the bike, take the rear wheel out
and oil the complaining freewheel. It seems that anytime it gets wet,
it will then start making it's crunching sounds as I pedal.

Setting out, the day is turning out to be very nice and actually
sunny. It wasn't supposed to be sunny!

Since it's so nice, I end up stopping at a lot of the seaside parks
and taking a few pictures. That doesn't do much for my progress, so I
elect to skip stopping for lunch, and eat snacks instead - chocolate
and jerky. The wind is also against me, as well as those pesky hills.

At one of the parks, I meet another cyclist, a fellow out for a ride,
who tells me that the weather is going to change for the worse, with
rain forecast for the next couple of days. In addition, he mentions a
section of the route which will have little to no shoulders. He
suggests that I be past that section well before the evening twilight,
which sort of starts at 6 and goes to sundown at 8:30.

With this in mind I try to put out a firmer pace, but it's difficult
heading into the wind and going up those hills. Still, I get to
Florence about 5:30, and I'm well past the nasty stretch he warned me
about. I didn't find it that bad, but there wasn't much traffic on
that part today.

I pull into McD and eat and check my email. I am also trying to figure
out where to stay. It starts raining in the meantime. I am sorely
tempted to find a motel. I call the economy inn, and the rate is $60
including taxes. I also know the state park two miles south of town
will cost $5. The rain has stopped, so I elect to go to the park. When
I arrive there are a bunch of people in the hiker/biker area. Two of
them are the couple I met waiting for the ferry to port townsend.
There is another guy, and a young hiker, actually hitchhiker from the
Netherlands.

We chat for a while as the bugs buzz around us. I am sure I'm being
bitten but there is no itch. I go to get cleaned up along with the
hitchhiker and the other cyclist who is showing us where it is. We
have a nice conversation on the way, and the restroom/showers turn out
to be pretty large and relatively nice.

By the time we get back it's nearly dark, and it's also started to
rain a bit. We adjourn to our tents, and everything becomes quiet as
the rain picks up a bit. Then the rain stops, but as nobody seems to
be out - probably due to the bugs, I work on today's blog. It's now
9:47.