Movin' on down the coast

To all of you folks who have diligently followed our blog, we apologize for our lack of updating. In light of this, we'll try and consolidate the past couple weeks into one convenient blog to bring everyone up to speed as we relax and recover in the unseasonable warm and sunny city of San Francisco.
We've come a long way since our last update. After leaving the Saul's homestead in Raymond, WA, we headed south toward the OR border. Connor, aptly dubbed "Con-air" due to maneuvering not only his 6'4" stature, but also his overburdened, accident prone, brake-pad deficient bicycle, finally saw defeat as his wobbly rear-wheel, blew a spoke right before we hit the Columbia river. With Nick and Greg taking an alternative route inland through to the border, Con-air and I bandaged his bike and limped it along to the coast. With the sun setting and a 4 mile bridge over the delta to go, we left the great state of Washington and coasted into the beautiful, if not cinematically famous city of Astoria, OR where notable films such as "The Goonies", "Free Willy", "TMNT 4", and "Kindergarten Cop" came to life. After wheelin' and dealin', Nick and Greg finaggled us a room which was quickly overcome with gear, bicycles, beers, and JoJo's. The highlight of Astoria was the visit to the local bike shop. Not only did they service Connor's wheel, but they had an old-school big wheel bike that stood about 6 feet tall. You'd think that 500 miles of cycling would make us pros, but even this old-boy gave us a challenge. We'd like to say we painted the town red, but to be honest most of our 2 day stay was spend sipping beer, coffee, and consuming considerable calories while resting our legs. Pushing away from Oregon's northern most city, it wasn't long before we found looking down from the hillsides at the rocky columns and mounds that epitomize the entire coast of OR. Rolling hill after rolling hill left us cruising through sleepy, almost desolate little fishing communities. Late in the day, exhausted from the climbs, Connor decided it was time to due some highway acrobats and took a tumble that luckily ended in only a little road rash. Cold, wet, and tired, we rolled into a non-descript town and, after struggling to make a fire in the rain and called it a night. The next day was unfortunate in that John found out his grandmother had passed away while the guys were in Tillamook, OR. While John crossed the street to see if there were any bus shuttles out of Tillamook, Connor, Greg, and Nick helped him out tremendously by contacted all the airlines for flights back to Ohio as well as contacting a local bike shop for him to store his bike while he was at home. They were an incredible help as within the next hour, John was on a bus, heading to the airport for a flight home to be with his family the next morning. The guys said goodbye as John headed home for a week, promising to return and meet up with them again, as they continued on down the coast.