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Copyright © 2003 Edward E. Williams
I work 14 miles from home. The average morning commute is about 30 minutes – 45 on a bad day. In the afternoon, it takes me an average 20 to 25 minutes to get home.
Today, however, is the first warm, dry day we’ve had after two solid months of rain and cold. No, really – March and April went down on record this year as two of the wettest months in the history or record keeping in Portland, Oregon. Each month featured exactly one day without measurable rainfall.
So, when May came and we started getting more than a few hours of dry at a time and the temps started warming up, it was very nice for a change.
I’ve been motorcycle commuting all winter. The only days I didn’t ride were those few that started out at 35 degrees and dumping, pouring rain at 7:00 AM. To me, doing a 14 mile commute in those conditions “just because” is dumb. I have a car. It’s warm, it’s dry, and it’s less likely to get run over by a crazy SUV driver in the rain.
Today, the rain quit really early. The sun was out by 8:30 AM. I got some gas at lunchtime and contemplated a long ride home after work. This is not unusual for me. On nice evenings, I often take an hour or two and just tool around on the back roads taking a 50 or 60 mile route to get home the 14 miles that I’d normally do direct when the weather’s not so nice.
So, at 5:00 PM, I shut off my phone and my computer and pull on my riding gear. It’s up to almost 70 now and the sun is shining brightly with hardly a cloud in the sky. The forecast is for colder temps tonight with increasing clouds and some sprinkles by midnight leading it to a rainy day again tomorrow. I’m going to take advantage of this today while it’s still warm.
I head out of Beaverton, Oregon, where I work, west on US highway 26 toward the Oregon coast. I’m not completely sure what my route will be, but I have a general idea of doing a big loop out to the coast and then north and back east again into the valley somewhere.
Once I get away from the freeway part of US 26, the road turns into a two-lane, somewhat twisty in sections, nice hills, lots of trees over the coast range. The bike is running fine, I feel really good, traffic isn’t all that heavy and before I know it, I’m only 10 miles from Seaside and US highway 101. 101, of course, is the same piece of road you can take from the Canadian border all the way to the Mexican border along the west coast. There’s parts of it that are simply spectacular. The part I’d be on this evening is more utilitarian than spectacular, but there’s some nice scenery nonetheless.
In Seaside, I turn north along 101 and head for Astoria, Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River. It is along this stretch of road where I discover two things. One, the weather forecasters had it right about incoming clouds and overcast. And two, May on the coast in Oregon is NOT August. It’s getting distinctly cooler and I’m still in my summer gloves.
An onshore breeze has kicked up by the time I pull in to Astoria and start looking for gas. It’s blowing hard enough that the trip over the Warrenton-Astoria bridge was a little bit of a fight. At the gas station, I change into warmer gloves and start thinking about dinner. It’s about 6:30 and I’m a little hungry.
After standing in line at a local pizza pub for about twenty minutes while the one clerk decided to let the customers in front of me change their minds about what they wanted about a hundred times – and without attempting to help anyone else (why do I have such bad luck with restaurants in Astoria?), I decided to leave and continue down the road.
The clouds are getting thicker by the mile and even in my insulated gloves, my fingers are getting cold as the temperature drops below 50. I decide to pull off for supper in Clatskanie, Oregon at the famous Hump’s Restaurant. It was prime rib special night – 6.99 for a really nice cut, coffee and dessert.
But, by the time I spent nearly an hour at the restaurant, it has gotten quite dark out and is now only a little above 45 degrees. Rain showers are threatening and as I continue down US highway 30, I start flipping the coin in my head about the next direction to go. I can continue down 30 through Ranier and St. Helens and Scapoose into Portland. This will take a little more than an hour because of the speed limit drops in all the various burgs along the way. Or, at Ranier, I can cross the Ranier-Longview bridge over the Columbia River and get on I-5 south into Portland via Vancouver, Washington. This only takes about 40 minutes.
By the time I get to the bridge turn off, my fingers had made the decision for me. I wanted to be home in less than an hour, not more.
The Rainier-Longview bridge is another of our really high and narrow “how the heck does it stay up there” bridges. It’s not unlike the Astoria bridge over to Long Beach, Washington or the Bridge of the Gods between Cascade Locks, Oregon and Stevenson, Washington. It’s a good 400 – 500 feet above the water, almost always has a crosswind, is only two lanes wide, is plagued by giant log trucks and is, right now, covered with steel plates since it’s undergoing repairs.
It’s another one of those bridges that I try really, really hard to cross while looking far and straight ahead and without looking over the rails. Something about those 3 foot high railings makes me nervous in a car – let alone on my bike.
I take the truck bypass around Longview to I-5 and blast south through Vancouver into Portland. It’s 9:30 PM when I get home, the temperature warmed up a little in the valley – it got back up to about 50.
So I can now say that Beaverton to Portland via Seaside and Astoria is a perfectly valid commuter route of about 164 miles.
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