During my last school year, we packed up our home, selling and giving away most of our belongings and storing what was left with family and friends. Our quest to divest ourselves and be ready to move what was left over to Vancouver Island was aided by Jim’s early retirement from his job at Shaw Communications where he had been a videographer for many years. They were continuing a round of layoffs as they restructured and when it was Jim’s turn the settlement package they offered was more that he would have made had he worked and retired when we planned, which was awesome!
The downsizing began with us going through everything we owned to decide what was important enough to keep (pictures, a very few pieces of furniture that had family connections and way too many clothes of mine! – more on that at a later date). We sold the bigger things and then gave away what was left first to our kids and friends. What was left, went to either Value Village or the dump. Jim, being the retired member of the family, got stuck with most of the moving of items and getting our place ready to finally leave. We were renting, so it was not a big thing, but we still had so much stuff to deal with! The idea was to be ready to go on the last day of school so that he could pick me up from work and we would head to Vancouver Island for a last goodbye with the kids over there (and to leave more stuff!) before setting out on our planned trip from Parksville to the Baja.
After camping with our kids for a couple of days, we took off. We were a bit worried about how we would accomplish this massive task, but just took it day by day, enjoying the moments as they came. I have to say, whether you ride a bike or drive a vehicle, you should go down the Pacific Coast – it is just amazing! I won’t go into the details of our whole trip here and will post the link to our bike blog at then end, but here are a few highlights of places that don’t necessarily make it onto the pages of every travel journal.
Oregon Wine Country
As we were riding to Portland, we didn’t go down the coast and hit the big tourist hot spots like Cannon Beach. Instead, we camped out at Champoeg State Park just south of Portland. We loved the location (right across the street from Lady Hill Winery no less!) and want to return to check out their yurts! We did check out the winery and enjoyed a glass of their wine while taking in the views. We rode through the wine country of Oregon on our way to Eugene, but this was the only winery we managed to stop at. It was a timing thing, really. When you ride, you want to get out early in the day which doesn’t exactly make wine tasting the best thing to do halfway through your ride! However, if we were driving, we would most certainly check out a lot more of the wineries in this lovely region.
Bandon
This little town, just south of Bullards State Park in Oregon was a real find and we almost missed it! Camping at Bullards was a dream and we highly recommend it, but if camping is not your thing, then stay in Bandon and head over to enjoy the beautiful beach there. There are some stunning rock formations which have been recorded many times, and the beach is just wonderful to wander on – either on a sunny day or a foggy one which we ended up with. The town itself is small but delightful and a great way to break up a trip down the coast – don’t miss it!
Elk Prairie Campground
This campground, in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, CA, has, in our opinion, the most stunning example of California Redwoods anywhere. In just a short hike from the Visitor’s centre, you are in ancient redwoods and the silence is defining!
In the end, we decided to end our bike travels in San Francisco. The weather that summer was just so hot – 100 degrees in San Fran! – and we were feeling like we just didn’t have it in us to ride further. However, we still had 3 months before we were wanting to be back home, so we had to make a new plan. After looking at the options, we chose to fly to Austin, Texas and stay there until it was time to head home. Why Austin, you ask? Well, first of all, we have a daughter and her husband who live in Waco, just an hour north, and secondly, Austin has great biking infrastructure as well as just being a very cool city to hang out in. We found an Airbnb to stay in that fit in our budget, so we were set. Using our travel points from Alaska Air, we flew over and set up shop just south of the river within walking distance of downtown Austin.
We found September to be pretty hot, but after that things settled down and we really enjoyed everything that this big and bustling city has to offer. There are just so many things to do in Austin and so much within biking or walking distance. We rode the bus as well, and in the end, felt like real locals. One of our goals with travel is to see how people live in other places, and you can’t really get a good sense of a place if you only spend one night there. Having this much time in a city new to us was such a pleasure and when we left at the end of November, we were really sad, but certainly plan to come back!
