Snakes Alive! - Day 16 – 43 miles

The day began with a double-size Fruity Porridge. I've started doubling the size of all my meals as it's clear from my fluctuating energy levels I've not been eating enough. As I was heating things up one of the Truckers I'd met the previous evening came over and asked if she could take my picture. I dutifully posed not knowing how many people will be subjected to this picture as it features in the slideshow of their 'Big Bike Ride'.

Once on the road it was 10 miles of scary freeway riding again before reaching the next town of Aberdeen. This town is, I believe, where Kurt Cobain spent his formative years before moving to Seattle. There is a large sign as you enter the town which reads: 'Welcome to Aberdeen. Come as you are'. I'm sure this is just the kind of memorial Kurt would have wanted. The town was pleasingly grim and industrial looking. Pretty much how I had imagined the birthplace of Grunge to look.

After Aberdeen I joined a much more pleasant, quieter road. The ride was spoiled slightly by the now familiar game of 'spot the suitable place to pee'. The game is quite simple. Whilst travelling at up 20MPH you scan the hedgerow for possible gaps. Deciding within the space of about quarter of a second whether you could take a pee there without being spotted by passing vehicles. One of the pitfalls of the game is that you quite often spot a place after it is too late to stop. This is very frustrating and with each one that goes past you get more desperate. The longer you play the game, the more you are willing to try risky spots. Leave it long enough and you will be happy to just stop the bike and pee directly into the oncoming traffic.

I arrived at Twin Harbours State Park, the campground for tonight. I decided to camp in the part of the site dedicated to cyclists as I was expecting Nick and Callie to arrive later. It was a bit shabby and wild looking but it's cheaper than the other parts of the campground. The place was inhabited by thousands of frogs. Every step I took would see frogs leap from under where my foot was about to fall. I set up the tent and was just about put the sleeping bag inside when right in front of me I noticed a snake. It was a 3 foot long Garter snake. Non-poisonous but quite a shock when you're not expecting to see it. I'm no great expect on snakes but I knew for sure it was a Garter snake as my brother used to own a pet Garter snake when we were children. I watched it for a while, it allowed me to get very close. I didn't much like the idea of camping with snakes and I considered moving my tent for to another spot. I then realised this was ideal practice for Mexico so forced myself to stay. I did take the precaution of leaving my sleeping bag in the stuff-sack though. I didn't want it getting in there. Later on I noticed another Garter snake, much younger than the other one I'd seen. Great, this wasn't just a snake that happened to be passing. I was camping in a snake's nest. God knows how many hundred snakes were eyeing my tent from the bushes, waiting for the perfect moment to slither inside.

The beach town of Westport was just a couple of miles away so I thought I'd take a quick look. It was a fairly depressing place. A sort of fishy-smelling industrial-estate rather the quaint seaside town I had in mind.

Back at the campground I met a couple of newly arrived cyclists and showed them to the cyclist's area of the site. Elan, a tatto-covered American guy and Kate, an Australian with a flat tyre. Elan was riding a lovely 1970's Peugeot racing bike with racks he'd welded himself, whereas Kate was a fellow Long Haul Trucker. We bumped into Nick and Callie who'd set up camp on the other side of the campground. It was amusing to find that everybody already knew each other from meeting at some previous point of the journey.

I had dinner with Elan and Kate and got to know them a bit better. They were very easygoing and generous people, sharing their food with me. After dinner Elan pointed out that today was our first day where we could actually see the Pacific ocean, our constant companion on the right-hand side for the rest of the trip. We all took a walk to the beach to mark this fact. The beach - although not the nicest I've seen - was perhaps the longest. It stretched further than I could see, disappearing at the horizon. I wondered if it would be possible to cycle all the way to Mexico along the beach.

Back at camp it was dark and the frogs had stepped their game up even further. I was most concerned about squashing one with my cycling shoes. The metal cleat on the underside of the shoe would be less like to engage cleanly with the pedal if it became gunked up with frog guts. As I unzipped the door to my tent frogs scattered. The last thing I want is a frog jumping around my tent. Correction: the last thing I want is a snake slithering around my tent.