I  got off the bus in Astoria late in the  afternoon.  The place seemed a bit run down.  The transit centre was manned by a very helpful person who gave me advice on accommodation and catching buses further south down the coast.

I checked in to a motel about half kilometer from the motel.  I then headed out looking for a place to eat.  There was hardly anyone around.  I asked a jogger if there were any restaurants nearby.  She told me that there was a brewery pub a short walk away.

Brewery

The place is called the Buoy Brewery and it turned out to be really good.  The bar looked out over the bay.  It was a very spectacular view.

I ordered baked fish.  Over the meal, I got into conversation with another customer.  He told me that he was travelling in a RV.  He also told me that he had been to Canberra on numerous occasions working for the United States government.  I asked him what he did for the government.  He told me that he “couldn’t tell me”.  This was turning into a similar conversation to that I had had in Santa Monica.

We kept talking about travelling and retirement. He told me that he had retired at 55 and that his wife did not like to travel.  They have an agreement  whereby he can travel as much as he likes and she stays at home.

We agreed on one thing: it is better to travel as soon as you can.  It will only get more difficult as you get older.

The bloke also told me that he is thinking of buying a sea going trawler and sailing it to Australia and New Zealand.

Series of Buses to Newport

I woke up early the next morning and went to the transit centre where I caught the first of a series of buses down the coast to Newport.

There were parts of the trip where it would have been good to ride, however on balance this was a good part of the trip to take by bus.

It was late in the afternoon when I arrived in Newport.  I checked into a very ordinary motel run by an Indian bloke who was a bit of a Basil Faulty.

After settling in I walked towards the beach front to look for a place to eat.  The beach was very windswept.

Irish Pub

I found a quiet a nice Irish Pub back from Nye Beach.  They had a very limited menu including Guinness beef pie.  That turned out to be very tasty.

Heading to Yachats

In the morning, I headed out to look for a place to have breakfast. I have found finding places to get a decent breakfast quite difficult in the US.  Most places only serve cooked breakfast meals.  Rarely can you find places that serve muesli and fresh fruit.  I settled on a plate of hot oats and blueberries.

Bike Shop

After leaving the motel, I stopped off at a bike shop to pump up my tyres.  The blokes in a bike shop told me that the weather was about to turn nasty.  This included rain and strong wind from South.  This was really annoying to hear as I had expected that the prevailing winds would be from North.

After leaving the bike shop I rode along the beach to small park which has a very spectacular view of a bridge which not dissimilar to Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The ride along the 101 was quite good.  There was quite a lot of traffic including large trucks, however the verge on the road is  wide so it is not too dangerous.

I stopped in a small town called Waldport  There was a small drive by coffee shop that served a very good cappuccino.  It is not easy to get good coffee is many places in the US.

Next to the coffee shop there was a bike shop.  As it turned out the bike shop was a charity run by a group of volunteers.  I got into a conversation with the blokes in the bike shop.  They told me that they received the bikes by donation and repair them where possible,  and sell them.

They were very interested in my travels, particularly those in Europe.  They like many people I speak to, they  lamented about the difficulty of riding bicycles in the U.S.  They also warned me about the change in weather that was expected.

Yachats

It was a relatively short ride to the next town which is a great little place called Yachats.

I found a really nice little motel and checked in.  The owners, a middle aged couple, were very friendly and told me that they had only recently bought the place.  Previously, they had worked with very large hotels in Las Vegas and was a bit of a change to go from the hotel that could handle over 7000 guests to one that only had 12 rooms.

The Internet was really good so I took the opportunity to make a couple of Skype calls.

After a quick walk around the town, I settled into the local craft Brewery for couple of pints of IPA.  It was an interesting IPA, very light and bubbly.

The owner of the motel had recommended a fish restaurant as a place for a meal.  It turned out to be a very good recommendation.

That night, as predicted, the weather changed dramatically as a storm clouds and rain came in from the sea.

Leaving Yachats

It was still raining heavily as I left the town in the morning.  This part of the coast from Yachats to Florence is one of the most spectacular parts of the Oregon coast.

As I rode along the weather changed almost by the minute.  It would be pouring with rain one minute and then it would clear and the sun would shine.

Fortunately, the sun was out at some of the spectacular points along the road.  Check out the Flickr photographs.

Florence

After leaving the spectacular section, there is a very boring bit of the road leading into the town of Florence.  It was late in the afternoon when I arrived in Florence.  I had thought that I may be able to catch a bus from Florence further south of 5.20 p.m.  in the afternoon.  The bus was leaving from the City Hall.

I used Google maps and find City Hall.  It wasn’t obvious which building was the City Hall.  I asked a bloke walking in the street, “can point me to City Hall”?.  He responded, “you want a sink hole”?  I ended up having to spell CITY HALL  before he understood what I was saying.

As it turned out no bus arrived and I headed across the road to book into motel.  The receptionist in motel told me that the bus would not stop unless you have made a prior booking.  As we spoke the rain started fall really heavily and turned into hail.

I have to say that Florence Oregon  is a dismal place, however, I  was lucky to have stopped only  a short walk from the ‘old town’, which contains some nice restaurants and bars.  I ended up having quite a nice pasta meal in an Italian restaurant, followed by a couple of pints of pale ale in a bar.

Heading to Winchester

It was raining when I left Florence.  It was also fairly cold and the riding wasn’t much fun at all.

It was mid-afternoon when I arrived in Winchester Bay.  I checked Google for advice on accommodation and decided book into the Salmon Landing Motel.  It turned out to be really good.

Given that the buses only operate Monday to Friday, I decided to stay in Winchester Bay until Sunday morning before riding onto Coos Bay, where I planned to catch a bus heading towards Orford.  I had been told that part of the 101 is not very interesting.

Into Coos Bay

I left Winchester Bay around midday.  As I rode south the weather started to clear.  The road run parallel to the very large sand dunes next to the beach.  This area is very popular for all terrain vehicle (ATV) fanatics.

There is a rail line running of along the coast.  Unfortunately it is only used to carry timber.  It would be great for passengers.

I arrived in Coos Bay around 3.00 p.m.  and booked into the Motel 6.  It was basic but very clean.  I took the short walk into the main part of town and found a brewery which served good beer and food.

Flickr Links

Busing it to Newport

https://flic.kr/s/aHskWeZWuc

To Yachats

https://flic.kr/s/aHskZy96pc

Yachats

https://flic.kr/s/aHskZsR9Dy

Winchester Bay

https://flic.kr/s/aHskWqvMFv

Coos Bay

https://flic.kr/s/aHskZFbd2f

 

Garmin Links

 

Newport

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1726691659

Yachats

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1728383895

Florence

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1729795803

Winchester Bay

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1734163160

I spent my first morning in Seattle back at the Greyhound bus station trying to find the whereabouts of my bag.  As I said in my previous post, it was to take three days before the bag arrived.

In the afternoon, I walked around the downtown area of Seattle, including Pioneer Square and Pike Market.  This part of the city doesn’t seem to have changed much since my last visit which was back in 1979.  One thing I did notice was that the trams that used to run along the road next to the piers have gone.  These trams came from all round the world, including Melbourne.

Night with Friends

In the late afternoon, I returned to the hostel where I was picked up by the husband of a family that I knew in Sydney.  He is a senior executive with Boeing and the family lived in Sydney for over nine years.  One of their daughters was a friend of my daughter in went to the same school.

We drove out of the city to their houses which is situated on Lake Sammamish.

The house is very spectacular, and so is the view across the lake to snow covered mountains in the distance.

Before having dinner, my hosts took me on a boat ride along the lake.  It is a very pleasant place to live.

We had an excellent conversation over dinner, talking about Boeing and a range of other subjects, which of course included Trump.

I told my hosts about my visits to Seattle and the fact that I seemed to always be in the city when the weather was fine.

I first visited Seattle in July 1979 when I visited a girl that I had meet in London.  She was in London studying at the London School of Economics as part of her university course at Bellingham.

Over the years, I returned to the city a number of times to see her.  In all but one occasion the weather was fine and sunny.  This is amazing given the city is famous for its wet weather.

We talked about the changes that have occurred in Seattle over the past 30 years.  Back then the major employer was Boeing and essentially, Seattle was a ‘one company town’.  Of course Boeing is still a major employer, however companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks are major employers now.

My host’s son, who lives next door, took me into Seattle the next morning.  He is one of the many young people who are working in the IT sector.  He works for Amazon, and will be taking a posting to Australia to work  on their ‘Cloud’ product.

Tour of Boeing Assembly Plan

The next day, I took a trip the Boeing assembly plan which is located north of the city.

On the way to the plant the guide gave some background information to the history of Boeing and its founder William Boeing.  One the interesting facts he told us was that the Boeing soon after the establishment of the company was a vertically integrated airline operation.  The company made the planes and also operated them.  These made the company extremely profitable.  The government passed antitrust legislation that forced Boeing to split up.  He also told us that the company went very near to going bankrupt as a result of having to abandon its supersonic plane.  During this period, the number of employees was halved.  There were signs, posted around the city saying, “will that last person at Boeing please turn out the lights”.

After arriving at the plant, we spent some time in the information centre.  This contained a number of exhibits including jet engines made by Rolls Royce and GE and a flight simulator.

We left the information centre on a bus which took us to the assembly plan.  On the way, the guide told us that the building is the largest building by volume on the planet.

After we got off the bus, we were taken along a long corridor which runs under the floor of the plant.  We then boarded  a lift to which took us to the viewing platform which overlooks the area where the planes are assembled.

The first area we saw was where the 747 is assembled.  The scale of place is extraordinary.  There are thousands of workers in the building at any point in time.  However, as you look down you only see a few workers at any point.

We then moved on to the area of the plant where the new 787 Dreamliner plane is being assembled.  This is the first commercial plane to be made primarily with carbon fibre.  It is very light and is more efficient in terms of fuel usage compared to planes made with aluminum.

I have flown on 787 from the Gold Coast to Singapore on Scoot Airlines and was impressed.  It appeared to be a very good plane.

On the way back into the city I chatted with the driver.  We talked about the fact that the cost of airline travel has hardly changed over the past 30 years.  He told me he and his wife travel to Thailand every year and that they have been paying virtually the same price for the tickets over that period.

In the evening I headed back the Pike Market area, where I found another gastro pub and  had some excellent brown ale and a meal.  The craft beer in Seattle is excellent.

Back in the hostel, I chatted to some English girls who are studying at Calgary University as part of their British University studies.  One of the girls told me that her father was brought up in Sunderland.  I gave her a link to my father’s POW story.  I noticed that it had a lot of hits since then.

Bag Arrives

In the morning, I received a message from Greyhound that my bag had finally arrived in Seattle.  That was such a relief.  For a while there, I thought I had lost it for good.

I took the light rail to the bus station.  The bag contained most of my belongings including the bike seat and the tools that I needed to reassemble the bike.  Once the bike was reassembled, I headed back to the hostel.

Flight Museum

Next I took a bus out to the Museum of Flight which is located next to Boeing Field, south of the city.

This is a very impressive museum.  It is on both sides of the highway passing the field.  On one side there is a covered area.  This is where a number of planes are on display.  These include, a Concorde, Airforce One that was used John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, there is also B29 that dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is also a 787.  The volunteer guide told me that this was one of six test that were built.  It is possible that the plane could, however it this particular plane was known issues with the mounting of the wing to the fuselage.  Of course, this fault was corrected on the production planes.

The main part of the museum is on the other side of the road.  It contains a large number of exhibits including a replica of the Wright brothers biplane.

It also contains a number of fighter planes including some MIGs and a Phantom.  This is a seriously dangerous looking aircraft.  I recall chatting one of these planes up close when I was working the Department of Defence.  I was out on the airfield at Fairburn in Canberra when Phantom was going some take off and landing exercises.  The noise was extraordinary.

Museum of Pop Culture

Next morning, I walked from the hostel to the Seattle Space Needle, this was built in 1962 when Seattle hosted the World’s Fair.  It is still one of the major tourist attractions in the city.  In the park in which the space needle sits, there is a Museum of Pop Culture.  That was the reason for my visit.

The museum building itself is very interesting.  It was designed by Frank Gehry and features his trademark odd shapes and use of exotic materials.  This building is not as big or as impressive as some of the other buildings designed by him that I have seen, for example the one in Bilbao in Spain, however it this is still quite impressive.

The museum contains a number of interesting exhibits including one on Jimi Hendrix who was brought up in Seattle, before he moved to London and became a Rock Legend.

When I visited the museum there was a special exhibit on Star Trek. The exhibit points out that Star Trek was quite innovative and somewhat controversial in its day.  For example, it featured the first interracial kiss on television and featured Russians working with Americans during that time of the Cold War.

On the way back to the hostel I took an indirect route taking in some streets that I had not walked for on before.  This area is undergoing major change.  Buildings are being knocked down and been replaced with apartment blocks a new office buildings.  It is really becoming a trendy  place to live and companies like Amazon are moving into this area.

 Meeting with a Young Cousin

In the evening, I caught up with a young cousin who lives in London. She works for Microsoft and was visiting Seattle for a conference of the developers.  It was great to catch up with her and   her chatting about her job and what it is like to work for Microsoft.  She is a very interesting and clever woman.

Heading South

My original plan had been to travel from Seattle to Vancouver by ferry and start my ride from there.  However, due to the time I had lost as a result of the bag issue, I decided to skip going to Vancouver.

In fact, I realised that the ride San Francisco was probably going to take at least 25 days and I don’t have that much time.  I decided that I would take a train Kelso and the bus to Astoria.

After checking out of the hostel, I rode down to the Amtrak station in King St.  It is a very impressive station, with white marble floors and walls.

The Amtrak train was very comfortable.  However, an issue with Amtrak trains is that they are inevitably late.  This is due to the fact that they share the tracks with freight trains that are a much slower and as a result, delay the Amtrak trains.

Fortunately, despite being late, I was able to make the connection with the bus to Astoria.

Flickr Links

Boeing Plan

https://flic.kr/s/aHskW17VDe

Museum of Flight

https://flic.kr/s/aHskWtmjQf

Museum of Pop Culture

https://flic.kr/s/aHskUtUz2h

Other Seattle

https://flic.kr/s/aHskUmsakJ

https://flic.kr/s/aHskZ2ncLG

I flew from Brisbane to Los Angeles. The Qantas flight was good.  The twelve hours flying time gives plenty of opportunity to sleep.

I landed in LA around 6.30 a.m. and took a shuttle to my hotel on Wiltshire Boulevard.  I had originally booked into a hostel, but it is being refurnished and I was transferred to a hotel owned by the same company.  The place turned out to be good.

 Jet Lag

Albeit that I had managed to get some sleep on the plane, I had mild jet lag.  The trick is to fall back into to a normal rhythm as soon as possible.  This meant staying awake until dark.

I went for a walk and caught  the Metro to Union Station to sort out my train travel.  Amtrak confirmed that my train to Seattle had been cancelled due to a freight train knocking out a bridge.  I had to look for alternatives. The flight were ridiculously expensive. I booked a Greyhound Bus ticket instead.

Pub

I had a meal in the Bounty Pub.  The meal was ordinary, however,  the conversations with the locals were interesting.  Trump isn’t popular in this pub.

Santa Monica

Next day I headed back into the Downtown area.  I recall that on my first visit in 1979, the downtown area was in serious decay.  On my last visit three years ago, the downtown was undergoing bit of a revival, will people moving into apartments and pubs and restaurants  opening. This is still happening at full steam.

I then caught the Expo train out to Santa Monica.

I really like Santa Monica.  I first went there in July 1979. On that visit, I happened on really good pub – The Ye Olde King’s Head. I visited that on subsequent visits to LA in 1983, 86 and 93.  I also went there on my last visit three years ago.

It is very popular with the UK expat community of which there are many in Santa Monica.

I got into a discussion with a bloke at the bar. He was doing a ‘Jack Nicholson’, wearing sunglasses indoors. He asked for the TV to turned to CNN and then got into a tirade about Trump. I asked him what he did for a living.  He said that he “couldn’t tell” me, beyond saying he “looked for people and he had just returned for the Philippines.

Dodgy Part of Town

The next day I went  back Downtown to visit the Greyhound station.  I wanted to confirm the arrangements for carrying the bike. The information on their website was somewhat confusing.  I also want see the bike boxes particularly by box would be able to fit my bike.

On the way to the bus station through a very rough part of town.  There were lots of homeless people living in tents ridge on the footpaths.  It wasn’t the sort of place that you would want  hang around.

As it turned out I got advice from there Greyhound people that I would able to use my Qantas box

Having sorted that out decided go up to Hollywood.  I am not sure why.  The place does nothing for me.

In the evening I had a chat with an old Caltex colleague who lives just south of LA.  Foolishly, I had neglected to forewarn him of my visit.  It was great to chat.  My colleague also gave me details of a mutual friend who also worked for Caltex and  is now living in France.  Hopefully I will be able to catch up with him when I am on in France in June or early July.

Leaving on a Greyhound

Next morning, I headed to a Public Storage place where I rented a locker the store my suitcase. As it turned out the locker was far bigger than I unexpected.

In the morning, I headed to Greyhound station using a shuttle bus operated by the hotel.  The  route took us through the downtown area. There is  lot of construction work going on downtown and it took ages to get through the congestion and into the bus station.

I checked in and waited to board the bus.

When it came to boarding the bus, it turned out that my Qantas flight box was bigger than the standard Greyhound box and would not fit into designated place for a bike.

I had to take the box to the other side of the bus to loaded it.  I left my bag  on the tarmac. When I returned to the other side of the bus, the bag wasn’t there and I assumed that it had been loaded by the baggage handler.

The bus and headed north up Interstate 5.  The road was very busy and despite having at least four lanes in each direction, the traffic was very congested.  We passed through vast areas of orange groves and vineyards.  This is agriculture on a major scale.

No Bag

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Sacramento.  At this stop we were required to change buses.  When I went to collect my bag it wasn’t there.  I had  a problem.

The staff at the  bus station told me that I would have to call the customer service centre.  The customer service centre turned out to be in the Philippines.  I was part way through the call when I had to board the new bus.

We headed off into the night.  I realized that I am far too old to travel on  night of buses.

Here were two more changes of buses before we finally arrived in Seattle.

After I had off loaded the bike I asked  Greyhound representative what I should do about recovering in my bag.  I told him about the issue of having to talk to people in of the Philippines.  He told me that it was a “joke that the customer service centre was here”.  He told me that he would give me the mobile number of someone and that he knew in the Los Angeles station.  I called the number.  The  bloke at the end of the line turned out to be very helpful.  After a few minutes, he came back to me and told me that he had found the bag.  That was such a relief.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it took another three days before the bag arrived in Seattle.  At each point where the bus is changed on the way,  the bag was offloaded. Because no one claimed it, it was held over to next bus.

I left the bus station and caught the light rail into the downtown area of Seattle made my way to the hostel.

After checking in it headed across the road to a gastro pub where I had a couple of pints and a meal.

I was very pleased to be in Seattle.

Flickr Link

https://flic.kr/s/aHskULSA6w

https://flic.kr/s/aHskYV6qHb

Last Visit

https://billrider2013.com/2014/04/26/flying-to-los-angeles