rain, rain go away

7/20 Day 9 - Today started out like usual. We woke up and Ethan decided to shower so I stayed in bed for a while. He got breakfast started (oatmeal pretty much every day) then I finished it up, while he packed up the tent and all his stuff. We ate, brushed our teeth and cleaned out our bowls. After we finished packing we set out for Nehalem Bay... 45 miles away. .

We biked for about 6 miles before I needed a break. The wind was really in our face today, which goes against everything we were told about biking south along the coast and it sucks. Anyway, I spotted a place called Pirates Cove to pull in. Perfect! They didn't have any snacks, but they did have some silly pirate gear and eye patches. They also had a signed picture of Lee Arenburg ("Ello puppet" guy from Pirates) in a glass case. He signed it "Ello Puppet." It was awesome. They also had stickers that said "Born to be a pirate, forced to work" and "those who have to work don't know how to plunder." I thought they were funny.

At about lunch time we had made it to Cannon Beach. It was cloudy, cold and we just got rained on so we decided to get lunch at a restaurant. After we warmed up with chicken noodle soup and a cheeseburger, I decided I needed socks for tonight because last night my feet were freezing and I couldn't sleep. We stopped in a couple places (this town was similar to Charlevoix with all it's little souvenir shops and boutiques) and finally found one that sold socks. I bought the fuzziest ones I could find. Duh.

After we left there the going was slow, but we were doing ok until we got to the mountains. More mountains...ugggghh! I struggled up them and just had absolutely no energy at all. We had to walk most times, which really slowed us down. After lots of walking up hills and going through a tunnel (also uphill) we finally made it to the top of the last hill. At that point I felt like garbage. My legs were dead and my throat hurt really bad. We needed to get out of the cold and wet ASAP.

We rode down the other side into Manzanita where Nehalem State Park is located. I needed a sweatshirt really bad so we pulled into town and walked around until we found a little store that sold very boring tourist type crap. I found kids sweatshirts that I luckily still fit into and got one in purple. The campground was only 2 miles from there so we got there quick. We set up the tent and I got in and put dry clothes on along with my fuzzy socks and new sweatshirt. Ethan did all the work tonight thankfully so I could stay warm. We ate dinner in the tent, which he did a great job cooking and pretty much hung out in the tent the rest of the night. Now it's time for bed :] We're keeping our fingers crossed that I feel better in the morning!