The Grand Canyon of Bridges

Bay Center, Washington – Seaside, Oregon

(Note that this was “yesterday’s post” – but Internet here in Oregon seems pretty abysmal, so it’s a little on the late side…)

A number of years ago I visited the Grand Canyon with my daughter Ellie and her friend Reese. 

I was pretty excited to enjoy one of our endurance-geek escapades: a rim-to-rim run down into the canyon and then up the other side, or, even better, a rim-to-rim-to-rim over and back. Big day – but I kind of love that type of stuff. 

When we arrived I found myself trying to find some good information on what this might be like. It was COVID times, so it was difficult to find a live park ranger. 

There were, however, signs everywhere:

Don’t even think about attempting to go down to the bottom and back in one day. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!

People trying to do rim-to-rim trips: DON’T DO IT!

NO WATER! YOU’LL DIE!!

Stuff like that. 

Now, usually I’m pretty good about doing dumb stuff anyway. But everyone seemed to be afraid of everything at that time, and I didn’t have Diana with me. She’s a pretty reliable voice: 

“It’ll be fine.”

Or

“Well, I’m doing it . . .”

But she wasn’t there. So in the end I opted to just run down and back up. 

Super fun. But also left me feeling a little disappointed. First off, there was water at the bottom. Second, the heat was supposed to be the big thing, but getting up early takes care of some of that. And then there was the swim in the icy cold Colorado River at the bottom. Super refreshing. 

Darn it! I should have done what I wanted to do from the beginning. You’re only young once . . . 

Dumb alarmist rangers. 

I tell you all this because of our experience with the Astoria Meggler Bridge. 

Quite the build-up: 

Super dangerous. 

The bridge is made of steel grating – you can see right down to the ocean. 

There is no shoulder. 

Cross winds can blow you off of the bridge. 

If you are going to go, go at 6 a.m. when there is no wind and no traffic.

That kind of thing. 

Probably if it was just me I would have gone a different way – 30 miles around to avoid the bridge.

But I have Dr. Liu with me now. Diana’s take: It will be fine. Let’s go. Never mind that we’ll be crossing in the middle of the day on Labor Day weekend 

“We’ll be fine.”

As usual, she was so right. Where does all this alarmism even come from? The bridge is not made of steel grating. You can’t see right through down to the ocean (actually the Columbia River Gorge). It’s made of ordinary concrete. There is a shoulder; it’s not super-wide, but it’s there, and there’s a huge difference between no shoulder and a three foot wide shoulder. There was basically no wind for us – though I will admit that that may have just been luck. Reality is, though, that our bikes are way too heavy for any kind of parasailing experience anyway; it would take a monsoon to really push one of those bikes off the road  . . . 

In the end it was a pretty fun experience riding over the bridge. Not as cool as rim-to-rim in the Grand Canyon – but definitely worth the price of admission. 

That’s why it’s good to bike with Diana. You might die – but you don’t miss the good stuff . . .

That was part 1 of our day. 

After visiting Astoria for a bit, complete with a trip to the bike store, an Italian deli, and the grocery store to pick up dinner and breakfast supplies, we set off for Sunset Beach State Recreation Area. It’s Saturday night of Labor Day Weekend, but we weren’t worried because Oregon has a rule where State Parks can’t turn bikers away. Pretty cool. 

Except that when we arrived at Sunset Beach there was a big sign with a tent – and an X through it. In case that wasn’t clear there were several additional signs spelling it out: No Camping Allowed!

Turns out there’s a difference between a State Park and a State Recreation Area. And, really, even State Parks are no guarantee. As we subsequently discovered, the rule is not that all State Parks in Oregon have to take bikers, the rule is that all State Parks that have camping have to take bikers. And as it turns out, not all State Parks have camping; in fact, many of them do not . . .

And that’s how our heretofore good day went off the rails. Because our next error was deciding to go to an actual State Park – only 17 miles farther down the road – on the other side of the town of Seaside. Kind of dispiriting to have to go seventeen extra miles after you think you’re done for the day – particularly when you are laden with an extra fifteen pounds of dinner accoutrements, including one of those big cans of Bud Light (turns out you can’t buy a smaller single can of beer . . .). 

It wasn’t until we reached Seaside – after biking through a “small” rain squall – that turned out to last more than an hour – that we realized the State Park we were headed to does not offer camping at all. 

Jupiter Pluvius! 

It didn’t take long to realize that we were in kind of a grim situation. Next State Park with camping: like 27 miles farther down the road. Hotels with availability on Saturday night of Labor Day Weekend? None. 

Fortunately, we did have one card left to play . . .

Last night at the Chinook campground we met some other campers – two couples – that we exchanged pleasantries with. We told them what we were doing and they had lots of questions. I think because both couples have young children and they are in that phase where they’re living the travel-bug part of themselves vicariously through people like us. 

Anyway, one of the guys, Tim, handed us a card with his phone number and told us that they lived in Seaside and if we went through there and needed a place to pitch our tent we should call them. Didn’t think much about it at the time . . .

But when push came to shove we decided to reach out . . .

Wow. People like Tim and his wife Gabby are amazing. Nice big yard for pitching our tent. Hot showers. Wifi. Laundry. Beautiful house that they’re building themselves. Blueberry bushes. 

They just couldn’t be any more generous and accommodating. 

There’s a lot of division in the world these days. But there are a ton of good people, too – who just want to help. 

One of the things that we love about bike touring. You inevitably get into scrapes, but you also inevitably end up meeting generous people who help you get out of your scrapes.