Spire: The Road to Baja

The Road to Baja

Join our friends Paul and Molly as they cycle from Seattle, WA to Tijuana, Mexico -- armed with laptops (and Spire bags) to document the 1,200 mile journey! View the progress on Google Maps

Day 7: May 31th 2008
	Today we crossed into Oregon! Bye bye Washington, and the cloudy cold days! It was actually still cloudy and cold on the south side of the Columbia River too, but we hope for some warm sunny days ahead. Anyway Molly decided to give me the silent treatment for a while so we rode in relative peace and quite for the first part of the day. By the time we reached the Astoria Bridge she was chatting away again as usual. Crossing the bridge was chaotic; little shoulders, 3 miles long, and a huge uphill on the south end tired us out quickly.

Day 6: May 30th 2008
	Today was mostly flat, and we only rode 51 miles so it was pretty easy, and boy we needed an easy one. Our bodies are still sore, and every morning we wake up tired, but Molly is ready to go and rides faster then me so I think she is doing great! Not much else happened today, oh-Molly did fall off her bike once when we stopped because she couldn’t get her feet out of her pedals, but don’t worry she was fine, and even managed to take a picture on her way down since she had the camera in her hand!

Day 5: May 29th 2008
	The rest of the day flowed on and we ended at Twin Harbors State Park, on the south side of Gray’s Harbor which was deserted and had an amazing beach where we ate dinner. Also, the camp area had hot showers! We paid our 4 bucks and got a 24 minute shower, which was exactly what we needed to keep our sanity. Overall the day was good, and even though we didn’t ride all day we made it to where we needed to and are back on schedule for tomorrow!

Day 4: May 28th 2008
	As soon as we left the rain forest behind the sun went away and clouds rolled in threatening us with another wet day. Luckily the bike gods spared us and we rode all day without a single drop. The ride to Forks was pretty much flat and straight and Molly was hustling and keeping me on my toes with her 15 MPH pace. We obviously got in early and had a long lunch, and finally found somewhere to connect to the internet.

Day 3: May 27th 2008
	Lake Crescent was the beginning of the rain forest, and completely amazed us. The pristine blue waters and temperate rain forest surroundings made us almost forget about the non-existent shoulder and the endless barrage of giant logging trucks flying by at high speeds. And for anyone who has never seen a Pacific Northwest logging truck drive by, these suckers are moving at the speed of light and could care less of who or what is on the shoulder in front of them. Needless to say it got pretty exciting at moments. But to get back to Lake Crescent, this place was unreal!! My words cannot even describe it, just look at the pictures.

Day 2: May 26th 2008
	Stats: 68.45 Miles, 6:34 hours, 10.1 MPH average, 29.9 MHP Top Speed, Rainy and cloudy high 50’s stopped raining by late afternoon. Today we started late; we woke up in Jamie and Sarah’s house in West Seattle and had a big breakfast that Sarah was great enough to make for us. After breakfast Jamie and Sarah took us and all our gear down to the ferry terminal in Seattle to catch the 9:30 Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry.

Day 1: May 25th 2008
	The alarm struck at 4:30, and quickly we were out of bed with the excitement of hitting the road. Denver International Airport is over an hour from Fort Collins, and with an 8:15 curtain call we headed out at 5:00. We were a bit worried about how checking bikes would go since neither of us had ever traveled like this before, and of course we packed way more to strap onto those bikes once on the road. However, the airport experience was smooth and easy. We made it on the plane, step one!!