Fall Down the Oregon Coast Day 1-Rain

We have completed Day 1 of our Fall Down the Oregon Coast bike tour (hopefully there will be no falling down). Sue and I met up with Matt at Pioneer Park just after 8:30. His wife was there, which was helpful as she could take photos. 

Ready to roll!

It started sprinkling before we even left the parking lot, but then it quit long enough for us to make it to 88th as it turns into Tilley. Yeah, not very far. We donned our rain gear. 

As we rode past Rutledge Farm, I felt compelled to take this photo. 

After all, what says Fall more than pumpkins?

We worked our way toward the Willapa Hills Trail, taking a snack break in Grand Mound, then later riding the Airport Trail, and eventually reaching the trail. Along Riverside Dr I saw three Olympia cyclists (Brad, Monica, and Brian). They were headed the opposite direction, and moving a whole lot faster than we were. Speaking of speed, guess who was the slowest one today? Yes, it was me. I might have brought too much stuff…but, one could argue that I could never go as light as Sue. My bike alone almost weighs as much as Sue’s whole setup! Plus, I have quite a bit of food (I always start out this way).

Anyway, we made it to the Trail. While we did skip the trailhead, we still encountered workers filling in the cracks that have formed in the pavement. They were nice, and let us go by. 

Filled cracks. The workers are up ahead. 

We came up to the new bridge over Hwy 6. This was our first time across the new bridge. 

Isn’t it great?

Fancy!

This selfie is not the best. 

We continued over the bridge, and on to the Adna Trailhead where we stopped for some lunch (I really needed to eat some of the food I was carrying). Fortunately, while we ate lunch, it wasn’t raining so much. 

Back on the trail, the rain returned with a pretty good squall for a few miles. It lightened up a bit, but never really quit. 

We arrived at our destination of Rainbow Falls State Park around 4:30ish. Lo and behold, there is another cyclist on my favorite Hiker/Biker spot! His name is David, and he’s from Winthrop. He is going down the Coast as far as Crescent City (probably because he is not lucky like us, and has to take the train back, or something. Matt’s wife will be picking us up.).

Right off the bat, I got to experience setting up my new 1 person tent in the rain. I managed to do it setting up the fly first, thus keeping the tent body dry. However, I do miss not having the second vestibule, because so much of the stuff is wet. Oh well, it seems to be working okay having everything crammed under the one vestibule. 

We found a semi dry picnic table in the day use area to fix our dinners. I fixed a veggie stir fry to use the heavy food I had. Tomorrow, I will be faster (okay, probably not).

It seemed to have stopped raining for awhile, but the trees are still dripping, so I don’t know if it has really stopped raining. It’s supposed to rain even more tomorrow. So far, this Fall Down the Coast tour has a lot of rain falling down.