Alameda - We gave up! After a week of riding in the rain and looking at a forecast of more rain ahead, we called it quits in Depoe Bay, Oregon, 500-some miles from our start. We weren't having good views because of the clouds and mist. Nobody wanted to stop for a photo in the rain. There was nobody on the street to observe or talk to. We didn't want to camp in the rain and we were too cold and wet to sit around when we did camp. Perhaps it was a sign when Michele took advantage of the hot air hand-dryer in a supermarket restroom. She fitted her sleeve cuffs over the air outlet and blew hot air through the sleeves to dry out. Time to go

home.

Getting home from Depoe Bay wasn't all that easy. We needed a vehicle to carry three people and three bicycles for a one-way rental to another state. Michele and I took a taxi twelve miles to Newport. We rented a small car there and drove two hours to the Eugene airport. We rented an SUV at Eugene and drove both cars two hours back to Newport. We dropped off rental car #1 and picked up Roy and the bicycles. Then we drove eleven hours home to Alameda, arriving about 4 AM.

To resume the story of the Astoria bridge, the final section of the bridge is a 400-foot climb at about a ten percent grade. The wind was blowing

around 35 mph from the west. Wobbling to begin with, I was being blown into the traffic lane; my lighter-weight colleagues even more so. We were all reduced to pushing the bikes as the traffic roared past inches away. A stinging rain resumed as we reached the top. I thought it was curtains for sure, but we survived. The angels look after little children and fools.

Some highlights from the trip:

The Pacific County courthouse in South Bend, Washington. Here's the dome viewed from the inside.

The Marine Museum at Astoria, Oregon. The mouth of the Columbia is called the "Graveyard of the Pacific" because of the terrible weather, the currents from the river and tides, and the frequently-changing sandbars. There are over 2000 known sinkings in the area. The most dramatic exhibits relate to the Coast Guard attempts to rescue crews in distress. Three separate Coast Guard vessels sank in a storm trying to rescue the crew of the fishing boat Mermaid. The captain of a Soviet-era freighter refused to be evacuated from his grounded ship until the ship began to break up. His concerns for what would happen when he got home may

have been well-founded; he was never heard from again.

At Quilcene, Washington, feelings run high about protection for endangered species interfering with logging.

Watching Roy change in and out of his foul weather gear.

The sky at Manzanita, Oregon

Michele says maybe try riding coast to coast again, Southern route, in a couple years.