Alissa: After waiting an hour in the morning for the rain to stop, we headed out to tackle the longest climb of the trip. It rained off and on during the climb, but we made it to the top, passing lots of snow on the sides of the road and slush on the ground.
It was a similar route to the one I rode up to MSRI when I was there. During the miles of descending in rain and sub-40 degree temps, my hands and feet were becoming too cold. So, I started walking with my bike. At some point, a retired firefighter took pity on us and pulled over to see if we needed help. He offered us a ride down the rest of the way, which I happily agreed to.
I’m sure we’ll be reading the newspaper and learn that his story is analogous to that of Large Marge’s (One thousand Alissa-bucks for you if you know the reference).
The worst part of accepting the ride was that our first view of the Pacific Ocean was from a truck.
With our quicker-than-expected ride, we had plenty of time to play in Westport:
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a beach with black sand!
Glen: Note that the above is the non-cheating graph, covering about 15 miles. I was still chilly by the time we pulled into Westport, but fortunately among the charms of the Westport hotel were a blazing-hot dry sauna and a a very powerful gas fireplace in the lobby which soon took care of that issue.