Finally we post!

Hello everyone,

Torill and I departed Vancouver on September 21st on our cycle trip to
somewhere in Mexico, or perhaps beyond. Our plans for the trip remain
quite lose; essentially we have at least until the end of the year to
travel around and are starting out by cycling the Pacific Coast Cycle
Route from Canada down to Mexico. We will probably continue on down
the Baja Peninsula in Mexico and then over to Mazatlan and beyond. It
will probably take us less than two months to reach Mexico, I guess...

The first couple days we spent more time in cars (thanks so much
cousin Laura!) and on ferries than biking and had a nice stopover on
Salt Spring with Torill's parents, thanks! From Salt Spring on
Tuesday we ferried to Swartz Bay then rode to Sidney with Torill's mom
who saw us off on the ferry to Anacortes Washington. We had great
weather for most of the first week and generally decent winds blowing
us along. Washington went by fairly quickly. We saw salmon spawning
right by our campsite at Dosewallips State Park, dined on delicious
fresh Tuna for about $2 a pound off the docks at Westport, and mostly
just got into the swing of things on the heavily laden bikes as the
miles melted away. The route we took through Washington was less
scenic than I had anticipated but at least the roads and the drivers
(apart from those driving RVs) were very good.

On Sunday afternoon we crossed into Oregon; the entry point being a
horrendous 5 mile long narrow two lane bridge with heavy traffic
spanning the Columbia River. This was the only bad stretch of road so
far on the trip but it was really bad! We did manage to get across
with all limbs intact though, an accomplishment in itself. That night
the weather finally turned and our warm sunny days were swapped out
for rain, cold temperatures, and headwinds. We took our first day off
from cycling on Tuesday as the forecast called for heavy rain (and did
not disappoint!). Today we rode about 50 miles through nasty
conditions and found out first indoor accommodation in the town of
Pacific City. The weather looks poor until at least Sunday so I might
have to do some sort of anti-rain dance tonight. The Oregon coast is
truly spectacular but we are missing out on many of the great views
because of the heavy rain, clouds, and fog.

Thats all for now but I will surely start posting a bit more regularly
from here on out. I hope everyone is well!

Brydone