Springtime on the Pacific Coast Highway

Well, another trip begins as a hell week at work ends.  As Saturday morning dawns, I've still not gotten everything packed and in a bit of a rush to get going, I later discovered that I forgot to bring a few things, but nothing major that would screw up the trip.  I strike out at about 8:30 AM and decide to have coffee and spend some time with the newspaper just outside of town on my way south.

Today's leg of the trip will get me over the Oregon coast range and on the the Pacific Coast Highway, which is US 101 in Oregon.  I head south out of Portland for a brief stint on Interstate 5 to Corvallis where I leave the freeway for the last time in what will turn out to be six days.  Outside of Philomath, OR, I turn on to OR34, the Alsea River Highway.

This map gives you an idea of why this particular road is fairly popular with motorcyclists:


The Alsea River Highway, as you might imagine, follows the Alsea River down to Waldport.  There's no place on the road that's "Deal's Gap" kind of twisty, but it has several nice, tight, challenging corners that make it a joy to ride.  Combine that with the smell of the fir trees and the peace and quite of rural Oregon and it makes for a very nice 58 miles.

About a 1/4 of the way from Philomath to Waldport, there's Mary's Peak state park.  The road up to the park twists and turns harder than highway 34 and places you at the top in about 8 miles with this view:


The morning, overall, was sunny and relatively warm even though I wouldn't call it "balmy."  Up on the peak, the temperature was a brisk 48 degrees and the wind was blowing pretty good.  I hung around listening to the quiet for about half an hour and then headed back down to highway 34 for the rest of the ride to the beach.

Once at Waldport, the ride continues on the coast road from there all the way to San Diego.  Today, I'll cruise as far as I get by about dinner time, stopping along the way for lunch in Bandon, Oregon and to see the sights in various places.  My trip is going to be fairly leasurely southbound - I have one commitment, dinner with a friend in Laguna Beach, California, on Wednesday evening.  This means that I have five solid days to go only about 1000 miles, so none of the days are going to be that long.  In fact, today's ride ends up being one of the longest of the southbound ride.

By the time I make Brookings, Oregon, it's only about 4:00 in the afternoon.  Even with all the stopping to watch the ocean, I've made good time.  Upon seeing a sign near Brookings that says "Crescent City - 25; Eureka - 105" I decide that Eureka would be a good place to stop for the evening.

I pulled in to a Motel 6 in Eureka at about 7:00 PM and after grabbing some dinner, settle down with my California road map to plan the next day's ride.


GO to the next day of the trip

A few links