Lincoln City - Raymond

When crossing over to Washington State on Wednesday in Astoria I had to cross the bridge over the Columbia river, that was one of the worst cyclebridges I had and surely deserves a place in my personal top 20. I saw Mount St. Helens in the east some 150 miles away from me ! I met NA7Q on the bridge in Astoria, Mike, very nice young ham.

Here I saw the first real big containervessels since San Francisco.
Today I topped the 1000-milemarker, that some 1600 kilometers .. everything a ok !

I met a real Alaskan guy on a bicycle onroute who was wearing a helmet with a HD-camera on. He explained that it was easier to make photos as he was driving..
I also met Ben from Winnipeg along with another three friends of him, he invited me over to come at his place when I`ll cycle up to Winnipeg, very nice from him.
Monday I passed trough the nice city of Pacific City. A little bit like Knokke but smaller. Canon Beach was more like Knokke.
In Canon Beach I saw the antenna of Doug N7HH and he invited me to see his radioroom. He`s a very bussy man as he runs a hotel/motel and is active in some groups as there is the local emergency hamradio group.
The next day there was an exercise for a Tsunami alert as placed on billboards along the road. In the morning there was a small Cesna plane that flew over announcing that it was also stating that it was a Tsunami test. I stayed in the local Cape Lookout State Park, one of the nicer parks but sparsely populated at this time of year.

I stayed also south of Canon Beach, there was a state park but they closed the camping area because the trees were falling on the RV`s so ... I asked a man if he knew a good place to stay for the night and he showed me the garden of a nextdoor house that he kept an eye on while they went away, it was a beautiful evening and great beaches and photo`s.

A girl in a coffeshop in Tillamook thought the capital of Belgium was Brugge, explained her that it was definitively something else ;-]
In Raymond I asked on the local repeatersystem for a good place to set up the tent since there were no good places around like a state park and Thatcher KE7JMC invited me to set up my tent in his garden for the night, perfect !
On the HF it wasn`t much of a nice period lately.. flux went down to 80 from 110 ..
On the radio I kept contact on the local net on 7177 in the evening qround 21-22 local  and 7145 around 0800 local in the morning.
Hopefully I get into Vancouver by next weekend !

Coos Bay - Lincoln City

Almost out of Oregon by now. It surely went by rather quickly.

North of Coos Bay are some nice beaches and inlets with cols that go up to some 500 feet. Saturday was very sunny and sunday rather strange. First sun al over and later on the day rain like it was never going to stop.

Florence and Newport are dull mediocre countytowns with the same shops all-over again. The nicer places can be found in-between. Slept into the dune-area near Yachats and placed an GP-antenna for 20 almost on the beach. Great ears but no ON-catch this time, DL and YL were ok.

Met a lady walking on the beach that was born in Fynn and raised in Ahus DK. She's some kind of a 'strandjutter' and gave me a little pink stone that's very shiny and stuff. She lived here for more than 55 years and by age she's .. some 5 years older than the oldest bakery-woman in Willebroek..

Again met some really interesting cyclers al going South to San Francisco or San Diego. Alex, Ken, Kirsten and friend and a young guy from Portland that was wearing the national crossjersey from .be from Sven Nys, he said.. I forgot his name, quite a strange one but he was really into veldcross and knew much about it.

I'm always happy when the weekend is over, way too much traffic on the roads and too many people into shops and restos. I got a flat tire on sunday, it really was leaking air very slowly. There was a little piece of metal in the outertire that perforated the innertire. Fixed it on a statecampground where I stood next to a girl from London, UK doing the opposite trip as i'm doing upto Vancouver. This campsite had T-Mobile datacoverage, a real miracle..

Prognoses for sunny days in the next 3 days are non-existant.

CresentCity - Coos Bay

After being two weeks on the road its time for a roundup. Almost 700 miles on the counter, 12 days of sunny weather and met a lot of nice people. It is probably 'possible to reach Vancouver by the end of the month. Bike and fysicalwise everything is a-ok, the muscles on the lega are re-appearing after 6 months . The trip from Brookings to Port Orford brought on the longly anticipated rain and rainclouds. One positive thing about it is that the winds changed during bath weather to the south so wind in the back. From now on, read as of entering Oregon state, the weather will be as a roling dice, but most cloud-covered and rather chilly. It will also be another challenge ti keeper everything dry, cycling in the rain is not difficult but stopping , looking for a good campplace and setting up the tent dry is rather hard.. The landscape has changed to into a rather open and not dramatical as North California, but still great , even with the rain. It looks a bit like the road in between Stavanger and Bergen, Norway. Further on North than Port Orford the landscape is more open and so do the slopes. Bandon is a 'Wenduine' at the pacific, nice and cheap fish&ships resto's dough. Moneywise it is very possible to keeper expences low thanks to the low statepark campingfees of 5$. Food is quite cheap and compareble to Aldus and Lidl-levels. A decent warm meal can be found from about 10 to 15 dollar. A meal in McDo and BuKing from 5$ all-in. And yes , Root-beer, Mtn Dew, Dr. Pepper are all standard drink over here, great ! No need to go to the Graré-store in Wilrijk. The only regret I have untill now is buying a T-Mobile simcard, the edge-data only works in greater cities. Calls can be made over the AT&T network in other places but no data. I was certainly better of with Verizon or plain AT&T.

I heard OP4K , Joseph from Antwerp on tuesdayevening at 2319 local on 14245 ragchewing with the westcoast, tried cycling Humbold but no succes. Andreas DG0OBU heard me on 14278 at 2235 local with 43 , he used 750 W and 4 elements. Actually my impression is that the best time for a good opening to Europe is 0515 to 0615 UTC. If I can TX in the next days I give a shout +-QRM on 14285 every 15 mind inbetween the above-mentioned times. On 40 meters I discovered a new group on 7177 at 21-23 local with Chris N6WM, Danny K7SS, Randy KH6RC, Norman NH6I and Joe N6WN. Nice to listen and talk to.

Westport - CresentCity

After heading up for the Redwoods on Thursday I met a bunch of very nice people on state park campsites and into the wild. The SP's (State Parcs) are only 5 dollars a night , very cheap, clean, hot water, showers, electricity.. There was the double couple from Seattle that was heading up for the south - Yosemite - that invited me to join them around the campfire for dinner. First I just wanted to heat up my canned meal with meatballs and vegetables into their fire. But... it only contained the 'jus' for making the meal on the frontpicture of the can.. No dinner, but the neighbours were way too friendly. Thanks ! After Weott I joined - for some distance - a 'race' on sunday but had to leave it for Eureka. On the path of the race there were some hams that stood in for the communication in between the checkpoints since no cellphone was usable in that area. I met Jim, AC6YV , Dan KE6HEC and his xyl (also a ham) , and Dan KI6HDC. Had some free fruit and juice on the way.

Eureka is a typical little city of the county Humbold. Not much to see.

Tried to look for a place on the beach north of it but no succes, rain was hanging into the air. I could setup camp onto the lawn of a local farmer in Arcata. It rained during the night but again went sunny and windy in the morning. Sunday I visited the little town of Trinidad and saw two whales, playing in the bay. Ate a whole chicken, beans and had some milk as dinner. Set up the tent in state park prairie creek Redwoods. Met a 70 year old cyclists Ron from fort Bragg who was cycling upto Seattle to meet his children. Also a couple from Seattle was cycling to San Francisco. At 5 o'clock in the morning my stomache said I needed to go.. and for four times after that I took some Imodium.. I think dinner was the cause. Charged batteries and cycled up over to state park del norte coast just south of Cresent City. Broke one of the tentpoles and fixed it with the repairkit. Does anyone knows a good tentshop in between here and Vancouver ? Made a campfire that helped me to heat up the - now real - meatball can .. My fleece and long trousers will be stinky-winky in the morning but then again.. Made several contacts on 40 meters with VE7OJ Adam in Vancouver, KE7NCO Scotty in Reno Nevada, Dave KE6YX in Oakland and Julien KK7JX in Le Grand, Oregon. Julien informed me that his friend KE1THR is doing a cycletrip from Alaska to Texas with also a qrp radio in the bagg. Would be fun if we could meet on frequency or in visu ! At the moment I'm really in a very low budget-mode : very cheap or free campsites and some 10 dollars a day for food. Already food has to be stored into special bear-proof boxes that only men with an IQ of more than 80 can open.. Saw a few wild elks on the way and very nice flowers in the Redwoods. Seems that spring is following my trial as hoped for.

RIP Wouter Weylandt

Just read the news 10 miles south of Cresent City on freeway 101 next to the Trees of mystery...

http://m.sporza.be/cm/sporza.mobile/m_wielrennen/1.1020065