Pacific Coast - Day 8 - Epic Motorcycle Ride

Saturday, July 21, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

We woke up around 7 this morning to some very wet tents and gear. I'm not sure if it actually rained last night or if it was just the fog/mist coming in off the ocean. Either way it was yet another cold wet morning which we've had more mornings than we would like. We tore down camp, packed up and ate and then took a quick tour of the beach. We were soon on our way for Cape Disappointment at the very south western tip of Washington.

We had to backtrack about 15 miles to Port Angeles so we could fuel up. We weren't sure where the next town was and didn't want to have to resort to the Rotopax again. After fueling up we started our journey down the 101. The ride was really nice, although it stayed cold for the majority of the day and the mist/fog was essentially rain and kept us equally as wet.

We stopped at Ruby Beach in the Olympic National Forest and were greeted with some really nice views of the pacific ocean. This is also the first time one of our bikes went down this trip. I was trying to turn my bike around in the parking lot so I could get my kickstand down in a reasonable spot and didn't release my clutch enough and tipped over. The SW-Motech panniers held up amazingly well and we quickly righted my bike and carried on. I did start to have a few idling issues for a short while after this though. Instead of idling my engine would just shut off. We pulled over a few times and couldn't figure out what the problem was. We thought it might be a spark plug issue but then it went back to normal and the problem hasn't appeared since. We're still not sure what it was.

We eventually made it to Aberdeen where we stopped for some lunch about 70 miles away from our final destination. Ryan's rear tire has been causing him some concern so he started looking for KTM dealers nearby that he can hopefully get a new rear tire from. He found one near Astoria, OR and decided he'd call them when we got to the campground.

Some nice scenic roads later we made it to our campground and got set up and found out there's no cell service here. We'll try to find a KTM shop some time tomorrow when we get reception back. We walked around the beach and took some shots. The sand was very black and also nice and warm. The water however was freezing cold.

After getting back from the beach we decided we needed some more booze and set off on a walk to the nearest general store. What we thought would be a quick walk turned into a walk that was a little over a mile each way. It took us about 30 minutes to walk each way. They didn't have any hard alcohol so we ended up getting some beers and walked back to the campsite. We cracked open the beers and started a fire and that puts us to where we are now. We've still got a couple hours of daylight and will probably eat soon and then head off to bed. We've got a really long day already planned for tomorrow and if we do try to get Ryan's tire changed it'll just add that much more time to it.

We're hoping we don't get rained on tonight which would be nice for a change. We'll see how it goes though!

Teaser photos: