Southern Oregon - more details

I didn't expect to have internet again today. Ross has organized another 'warm showers' place for us today, which is in Crescent City, our first destination in California! But I start where I ended last time.

The day after Newport was relaxing. I caught up with the other three after doing the laundry in this cool bikeshop. We passed a sea lion colony! We ended up on another State Park campground after 70 km this day.

Sea lions


Soon, the 'dune section' started. A long part of the Oregon coast with great sand dunes, that you can access from the road. Sometimes, the dunes even come to the road so you don't need to go there.



And if you go into the dunes, it looks like this.



My stove is broken since today, but the others had made some 'Sauerkraut' from a can and shared it with me. It's funny to eat Sauerkraut in America, as I hardly eat it in Germany, even though it's probably the most typical food.
Cycled 83 km. The hiker/biker sites are no longer as crowded like in northern Oregon.

The next day was the second longest so far (130 km). After a coffee break we had a climb across a mountain range called the Seven Devils (reminds me a little bit of the seven sisters in Norway, which we didn't have to cross, luckily...). These seven devils were great. A very dynamic and fast up- and down-ride in the sun, that we hadn't seen for the last two days. After the mountain range, we took a break in Brandon, a city full of bikes, especially racing bikes. The temperature dropped significantly and fog replaced the sun, which soon changed again as we went on. South of Brandon, we saw racing cyclists coming towards Brandon approximately every ten seconds.
There is hardly a break when nobody asks us where we are from and where we are heading. It's a little hard to give one answer for all of us. Different places, different destinations. Sometimes we just say 'south' or 'California' or 'California ... and beyond'. If they want to know more, each of us tells his story. It's cool how interested people are. We attract some attention when we stop in the small towns.

Another 80 km brought us to a campsite near Brookings the next day, the last city before California. The day was great. One big hill followed by several small ones, and lots and lots of viewpoints across the rough coast of Oregon.
We got to Brookings in the early afternoon and ended the day with pizza, beer and ice cream. It's increadible what you can eat when you're cycling. And afterwards, you're still hungry. The barkeeper gave us four more beers to take-away, which we enjoyed while watching the sun set at the beach.






And finally: we reached California today! After crossing the boarder, we expected to be checked for fruit and vegetable import goods. The California border is well protected in terms of this, because they don't want their local flora to be contaminated by 'foreign' fruits etc. But they didn't want to check our bags, instead we were provided with maps and a warm (well, cold and foggy in the beginning) welcome to California.
The scenery was like in Germany: cows and their scent, farms, flat land. Again a mixture of fog and sunshine.



And another funny story: I met Hardy and Alena (www.2radler.de, cycling from Alaska to Argentina) for the third time, coincidentally! They are at the same warm shower host like us. We're camping in the garden.