An hour later the sun had kicked in and it was a more acceptable breakfasting temperature. The campsite was so comfortable and welcoming I lazed around until midday.
Having looked at the map I could see I was in for another lonely ride. It was over 30 miles until the next town so I decided to start with a 2 mile detour to the shop in Bay Center. To call it a shop is to stretch the word 'shop' to the very limit. Bay Center grocery store has a lot of shelves, some fridges and even a deli counter. Unfortunately they are all pretty much empty. I grabbed a few chocolate bars and some trail mix and headed south again.
It was a beautiful day, not a single cloud in the sky. I decided to ride without my gloves with a view to getting rid of the embarrassing tan-lines on my hands. I felt much more positive today, I was embracing the lonely road and the miles of untamed wetlands lining the route. At times I would start to wonder what would happen if I accidentally rode off the side of the road, only 12 inches to the right. I would plunge, unhindered by barriers or trees, directly into the water below. The more I starter to think about it, the more my front wheel began to wobble.
After 15 miles without seeing anybody I noticed a cyclist appearing from behind a large tree stump quite a distance from the road. I tried to give him a friendly nod but realised he was probably taking a poo in a bush.
I continued down the road for another 2 miles and noticed what appeared to be a person sitting down in the hard shoulder. As I got closer I realised it was a cyclist, sitting on the ground behind his bike. He looked a little dazed so I stopped to ask if he was ok. It didn't seem right to be sitting down on the hard shoulder of such a big road. 'I'm fine, just hydrating.', he replied. He was young, perhaps 20 years old with long, scruffy hair. He asked if I'd seen his friend. I told him about the guy in the bush. We talked about our respective journeys. He and his friend had travelled from the mid-west across the vast, flat prairies. They were bound for Portland, Oregon. As I made to leave he asked, 'Smoke pot?', offering me his pipe. I smiled, politely declining and left him to it. It seemed odd to me that given the miles of surrounding forest he'd chosen to sit in the hard shoulder of a highway to smoke his pipe. I'd be interested to know how long their journey has taken. Possibly years.
When cycling back in the UK I'm always startled by the amount of road-kill I see. I'd noticed that up until the last couple of days I'd hardly seen any in Canada and the US. For some reason though, in the last couple of days I've seen some very disturbing sights. Frogs, snakes and raccoons mainly. Today I saw what I think was a porcupine at the side of the road. As I passed I gave it a good look to try and properly identify it, when from the trees I heard a loud growl. I pedalled away quite quickly and then stopped at what I deemed to be a safe distance. I waited, expecting to see a bear come out of the trees to collect the porcupine. To my disappointment nothing came. I don't know what that growl was, but it was loud. I suppose it could have been my stomach given that I'd missed lunch.
In the end I didn't pass a shop, gas station or cafe for 35 miles. It's hard to eat properly in this kind of environment. When I finally came to a grocery store I loaded up on food for dinner. A few miles later I reached Cape Disappointment State Park. I was curious to find out how this cape was given such a negative sounding name. Apparently some guy in the 19th century went looking for the mouth of the Columbia river (only a few miles south) and couldn't find it. I'm not sure how long he looked or why he so wanted to find it, the important thing is he was disappointed.
The camping area was decent enough with raccoon-proof food storage for cyclists. I put up the tent and went to the showers. I knew I had 2 remaining Washington State Park shower tokens remaining. I also knew that this would be the last state park I would stay at in Washington, as tomorrow I cross the Oregon border. You will understand then my annoyance at finding the shower was operated by quarter-dollars rather than tokens. I would never get to use my remaining shower tokens. That's money not down the drain, I thought to myself, attempting to ease the loss with some clever word-play.
I was the only person camping in the cyclists area of the park tonight so none of the usual cycle touring banter was had. To be honest I was glad to have the chance to catch up with my book about the South Pole.
Tomorrow I will leave Washington and begin the journey through Oregon. Everybody says this is the highlight of the trip so I'm looking forward to it. I could probably do with a day off, not having had a proper rest day for more than a week. It's hard to stop though. I have an urge to keep moving even though there is no rush. I must learn how to stop now that I have learnt how to go.
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