John’s Ramblings

Day 1 – Raymond to Skamokawa – 61 miles
(or, who turned off the heat?)

After completion of the morning ritual, we were finally ready to begin the ride. The morning ritual (for me anyway) is:

• 5:30 a.m. coffee
• 5:45 a.m. more coffee
• 6:00 a.m. breakfast, coffee
• 6:20 a.m. change into cycling clothes
• 6:30 a.m. pack bags, tent, chair
• 6:45 a.m. load bags on truck
• 7-7:15 a.m. begin ride

Sunday started out at around 60 degrees and cloudy, and seemed to get a bit cooler yet by mid-morning. The ride started by picking up a multi-use trail in Raymond, and following it for several miles until it ended in South Bend, on Highway 101. Once out of South Bend, the road started to have a bit of “up” and “down” to it… rollers, but nothing too severe as I recall. We continued on Hwy 101 for 30 miles, then we made a left turn on Hwy. 4 in order to head southeast toward Longview, rather than due south toward Astoria. Construction signs spotted along Hwy. 4 informed us that chip-seal work would begin on the roadway the following day. The existing asphalt of this state highway was in great shape, and I saw no reason to go mucking it up with that tar-and-gravel routine that vibrates the handlebars and puts your hands to sleep.

The lunch stop was in the town of Naselle, only 36 miles into our 60 mile day. I rolled in to the lunch stop at around 10:15 a.m., which felt like the coldest time of the day. Everyone was huddled up at lunch, and the conversations centered on the temperature, and the erroneous decisions to not wear arm- and leg-warmers. It would warm up to about 70 as the day wore on, but at that point everyone was wishing for more layers.

Lunch was a chicken sandwich on a rather dry roll. Subsequent lunchtime sandwiches would be served with two mayonnaise packets instead of just one, presumably in a move to double the lubrication and make swallowing easier.

After lunch it was back on the bike and back on the highway. About 10 miles after lunch, we briefly diverted off the highway in order to visit the only still functional covered wooden bridge in Washington State. Having only seen covered bridges in books and on television, I thought that this was a nice little diversion. As an added treat, the RAW organizers put a sani-can on the other side of the bridge, just so we would have a goal to ride to.

The rest of the ride was warmer, but uneventful. About 9 miles before our destination we had to climb “KM Mountain”, which was 760 feet over 2.5 miles. Once over the top and after a nice long descent, we were soon rolling into the campground at Skamokawa (pronounced Skah-mock-ah-way). The campground was situated next to the Columbia River, which gave us views of the occasional passing freighter on it’s way to Longview or Portland. I rode in to the “town” shortly after arrival, and a stop at the local general store garnered me some interesting looks from the locals. They apparently don’t see many cyclists in Skamokawa. After dinner (salmon, again) Russ and I headed in to town for a beer at the local watering hole, the Duck Inn. From my limited observation at that establishment, it appears the two major food groups in town are Rainier Beer and french fries.

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