Coming off our rest day, we had two possible routes planned. One that had more climbing, but would be more scenic, and theoretically less traffic, or a flatter one which would be easier, but less pretty. We chose the climby one.

The forecast had 20ish% chance of rain all day, and as we were getting ready, it was raining. So we steeled ourselves for a wet day, put on rain booties, etc. By the time we got our bikes outside, it had stopped. By the time we got everything loaded, the sun was shining. Off with the booties, lenses back to sunshine mode.

We headed south on good old 101, going through several small communities. We made good time on the mostly flat road towards Garibaldi. The road was in pretty good shape, and sections freshly paved. The surface was wet from rain, but not enough to get spray from the cars and trucks passing us.

It was the morning of giant goods on roofs. First, there was a giant crab on top of a marina. Then, a giant corn dog on top of a corn dog stand. Anne has been cursing herself ever since for not stopping at the corn dog place. She’s even doing it right now beside me, and talking about how we’ll have to come back.

Somewhere around Barview, we caught up with the paving project. The road suddenly turned to not much better than gravel. Once we carefully got through a thousand feet, it got a little better, as it hadn’t been torn up yet. Still, it was obviously why they were repaving.

On the main strip of Garibaldi, a giant, lonely smokestack stands tall straight ahead, framed by businesses on either side of the road. There sadly wasn’t any explanatory signage visible as we rode past, but Wikipedia tells me it’s the remains of a lumber mill. There’s also cool old train cars and locomotives.

Just north of Tillamook lies the Tillamook cheese factory, a brand of dairy products which seems to be popular on the west coast. Anne has been irrationally excited about visiting this place for a ridiculously long time. So we stopped. There’s a pretty big visitor center, and it was hopping. We took turns taking the kids in, and peeked at the operations, but didn’t do a tour. We are now the proud owners of a toy Tillamook bus/van thing. We also ate lunch at a picnic table in the parking lot, while people streamed in and out around us. We had some non-Tillamook milk packed for the kids, so I poured it into the sippy cups and immediately disposed of the evidence. At least the yogurt was Tillamook.

It had cooled off, and Ruth asked for her balaclava. I thought it was overkill, but she would work it out. Combined with the sunglasses, Ruth announced that she was camouflaged, and we couldn’t see her.

Then though the city of Tillamook itself, leaving 101 to head west on OR 131 back towards the coast. We made the first climb, and were rewarded with some nice views of Netarts Bay and it’s large intertidal areas.

The traffic died down as we started the second climb of the day up through the forest of Cape Lookout. There was a steep section at the beginning, so we stopped for a breather. We considered walking for a bit, but pressed on, and it shallowed out before long. At a viewpoint overlooking the beaches we had ridden past, there was a group of paragliders getting set up. We shared words of encouragement.

I started to see more sky through the trees, so knew the top was getting closer. And indeed, it came, although the peak was somewhat anticlimactic. We rolled back down through the forest, when it gave way to sand dunes. Despite signs forbidding it, we could hear an ATV tearing it up on the other side of a rise.

The dunes became wetlands before we got back to the coast, then a final small climb, and we arrived in Pacific City, our stop for the night.

The north end of town is much newer, with several restaurants and surf shops, presumably fed by the high rent RV park nearby (at least some run by the park). We’re staying at the south end of town.

We ended up walking back north for dinner, groceries, and checking out the sunset on the beach. The better views ended up being close to our motel.

Today was really nice. The weather held out, we had a nice ride with variety, and then we got a nice walk afterwards.